


You're Beautiful

by OhShitItsDatBoi (EmilysRose)



Series: Self Indulgent--is it Cannon? Oh my. [2]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M, Lap Dances, Life!, Sex, With A Twist, basically cannon, but not zombie life, death then, stabbings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 08:55:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17077250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmilysRose/pseuds/OhShitItsDatBoi
Summary: How I wanted A Court of Thorns and Roses to go.





	1. Show Yourself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I had two other chapters posted up before this one--but I like the fic starting here. Basically, if follows cannon reallllyyy close. The only major differences is that Feyre experienced a non-con when she was younger (which is not explicitly mentioned in the fic) and they broke her bones and messed up her face really bad. Think Invisible Monsters by Palahniuk or that chick in Sonnie's Edge of Love, Death, And Robots. Her face is broken, and the stress made her hair white. 
> 
> Feyre told Tamlin and Lucien that her name is Clare, not Feyre, because of that whole myth of "names have power" in faerie mythology. 
> 
> Feyre is also a looott more sassier in my fic than she is in the cannon.
> 
> Another minor little thing. Swearing is a human thing, and is considered absolutely vulgar to faerie sensibilities, so Feyre does a lot of swearing. 
> 
>  
> 
> This one starts Under the Mountain. After the bargain.

 I scanned the crowd for a familiar face—for Lucien—but I couldn’t find him before I was thrown at the foot of the dais. Today, Amaranthe wore a gown the color of rubies, drawing attention to her red-gold hair and her red lips, spread into a childish sugar-sweet smile.

“I wonder,” She crooned. “Why you have that mask on.” I felt my body grow still. “I wonder, is it a fashion statement that makes you wear that mask—is it your way of getting closer to dear Tamlin here?” She stroked Tamlin’s arm with the tips of her nails as he stared blankly at nothing.

I wished he'd blink. Or smile. Or even look at me. But his gaze stayed forward, his face absolutely still and perfect under his gilded mask.

“Take it off.” She ordered.

“Why?”

She met my gaze slowly, as if she hadn't expected me to question it and needed the time to think. “Because, dearest, I couldn’t sleep at _all_ last night.” She gave me a fake kind of pout. I leaned back onto my heels, my hands resting on my thighs, feeling the power and ache in my muscles. “I ended up using my favorite toy till he nearly passed out from the exertion.” I wish I could whack her in the face. _Cunt_. “And this morning, I realized why!” She clapped her hand in a crazy, fake delight. “I don’t know your name. _Or_ what’s under that mask. They couldn’t take it off during the beating. Couldn’t even break it. If we’re going to be such good friends the next three months, I should know your name and face, shouldn’t I?”

I tiled my head. “We aren’t friends.” I said simply, shrugging. “Why bother?” I was tired. It was a strange twist o fate, to  _want_ to be in a dungeon. 

She gave me a pout. “Come now, pet, you know my name. You’ve seen my face. It’s only fair. And I’m _so_ curious.” I tensed as the foul smell of the Attor came up behind me. “After all,” Amaranathe murmured, waving a delighting hand in the air so Jurian’s eyeball flashed in the light. I wonder if he could get motion sickness. “You wouldn’t want to get another _greeting_.”

“A beating you mean,” I said blandly. “And sure, fuck it. Go on ahead ya’ bitch. We’ll see how entertaining I am in your little trails after you’ve beaten me to death.”

I thought for a second she would come down to beat me herself. But then her face smoothed out and a delighted child’s peal came from her mouth, “Oh, Rhysand!”

I felt my heart go heavy as I heard those casual, strolling steps sound from behind me. They stopped to my right and I looked up at him. He was wearing the same black clothes. Same silky hair. Same absolute perfection. His hands were in his pocket and he was wearing his sexual-weapon mask on at the moment. I looked down. His shoes were not the leather things from before, but smooth black velvet that arched up the sides of his feet and covered the toes, only to create a little crease near the ankle where strings were. _Nice shoes_.

Rhysand’s mental voice was nothing like his real one. It was a sensation—of soothing darkness, of carefully controlled emotion: _Give her what she wants, darling_.

I stuck my chin out, staring at Amaranthe’s childish face. _No_.

Rhysand bowed at the waist to Amaranthe. Night seemed to ripple from him like some great black cloak.

Her brows lifted. “Is this the girl that you saw in Tamlin’s estate?”

“Hard to tell with the mask on.” He said, rising. He looked down at me, violet eyes holding nothing but boredom and disdain. “I suppose.”

“Can you not tell?”

“All humans look and smell alike.” He grabbed at invisible piece of lint from his pristine black sleeve.

“And what about all faeries?”

He bowed again, smooth enough that I knew he’d be a good dancer. Not that this wasn’t a dance of its own right. “Among a sea of mundane faces, yours is a work of art.”

I snorted. Since he was still bowed, she couldn’t see the smirk that filled his face for the briefest of instants before he stood up. Amaranthe’s face, though, was livid as she took me in.  “What’s her name?” She demanded.

“How should I know? She lied to me.”

 _I feel braver around you, I don’t know why_. I mused, looking at Amarenthe’s bland face as I spoke to Rhysand.  _Maybe because you hate her more than I do_. I could tell he did, too. Not only for the bed-whore thing. It was a deep, centered hatred that had him denying her purposefully at every turn.

 _Could you be my ally? Or am I naïve to even think it? I’m sure our goals align. Broken curses are rather in demand at the moment_. I teased. _If you want to, do that weird nervous tick thing again, with the sleeve._

 _Stop making me laugh_ , he demanded in cool wind and amusement and more quickly checked emotions. _I have a reputation to maintain._

 _Prick_.

Rhysand’s face twitched and his snort was loud in the still, watching hall. 

“What? What was that?” Amaranethe narrowed her eyes, glancing at his face.

“She’s abnormally funny.” Rhysand shrugged, smooth nonchalance filling his entire frame.

“What. Did. She. Say.” The woman—the child, really—held the rests of her chair, nails digging into the stone to fracture it as she searched his face. I wondered if I’d landed Rhysand in deeper shit by making him laugh.

 _I’m sorry if I did_. I told him, looking at Amarenthe’s face and imaging my fist breaking her nose again—and again—

“She called me a—a what?” Rhysand looked down at me.

“A prick.” I said easily. “Because you are. Fucker.” I said this while looking directly at Amaranthe. “Bitch titied son of a fucking cunt. You fart in the Cauldron, little dick—”

“Enough.” She said quietly, softly. “If you are inclined to play games, girl, then I suppose we shall do this the fun way.” She snapped her fingers at the Attor, whose foul smell left. I didn’t turn from staring at her until red hair glittered in my peripheral as the Attor brought someone out of the crowd. Dawning horror hit me as Lucien was shoved towards us by the collar of his green tunic.

“You promised not to hurt anyone I cared about.” I snapped.

“I keep my promises, silly.” She sneered. “I’m not going to hurt _Tamlin_ , obviously.”

“I care about Lucien.”

“Really? You didn’t specify.” She leaned back, grinning.

“Is your power so little that you dodge around loopholes?” She froze in her seat. “They say the greatest sign of weakness is the need to pick a way around your own agreements.”

“You will regret saying that to me.” She smiled. She was going to do it. She was going to hurt him.

No. No no no _not Lucien, not him. Don’t hurt him._ Unconsciously, I’d begun thinking to Rhysand. Because I knew that he was to be her knife in this. I knew that he was going to be the one who made me— _No. Please_.

There was no reply. Lucien thrashed against the Attor but couldn’t do a thing against those needle-like nails that dug into his arm. It forced him to his knees, smiling its disgusting smile.

Amaranthe flicked a finger in Rhysand’s direction. The High Lord of the Night Court lifted a groomed brow. “Hold his mind,” She commanded.

My heart squeezed and squeezed as Lucien went utterly still. I knew the feeling he was experiencing as sweat gleamed on his neck and his entire kneeling body went taunt. Rhysand again bowed his head to the queen.

Four tall, red haired High Fae were at the edges of the crowd. They were toned, well muscles, and looked like warriors, none of them having Lucien’s refined courtier elegance. But I knew they had to be his brothers. They all had the same red hair—though his was brighter, his skin darker. But I knew—because they were staring at their straining brother like this was the best day of their sick fucking lives.

“Her name, Emissary?” Amaranthe asked. Lucien only glanced at Tamlin, whose eyes were wide. Lucien, once he looked at Tamlin, seemed to square himself. Prepare. And Rhysand’s faint smile was horrible. As horrible as the red-headed brothers lurking on the edges, like pariahs waiting for blood.

Amaranthe giggled. “I thought you’d have learned your lesson by now, Lucien. Though, I suppose you learned it a little too well. Instead of your tongue, your silence will ruin you.” Lucien kept his eyes shut, ready for the pain, for the mind-breaking.

“Her name?” She asked Tamlin sweetly. Tamlin, of course, didn’t reply. His eyes were fixed on Lucien’s brothers, as if marking who had the biggest smile. And that—his silence—made me hate him. Not that he knew my name anyway.

 _Why doesn’t he_? Rhysand asked, curiosity coming out.

 _Because it is a beautiful name. It means beautiful, actually. Because I was very, very beautiful._ I thought of the face I used to have, it flashing in my mind as if I’d looked at it yesterday instead of years ago. The small chin, the sharp cheekbones, the full lips—the upper bigger than the lower. It would have been a heart shaped face, if it wasn’t so long. I’d been the most beautiful of my sisters. The image vanished from my mind in a flash. _Not that it compares to you Fae—but it’s what… I was_.

Rhysand said nothing back.

Amaranthe trailed a nail down the arm of her now cracked throne, looking up through her lashes to purr in her sugary-sweet voice, “Do you know, handsome brothers of the Autumn?” She asked, smiling her viper smile.

“If we did, Lady, we would be the first to tell you,” Said the tallest. He was lean, well dressed.

Amaranthe gave him a brighter smile and lifted her hand in a silent order. Rhysand cocked his head, his eyes narrowing on Lucien. Lucien’s grew stiff. A groan escaped his lips and—

“Feyre.” I hissed. “My name is Feyre.” It was a very little thing to give up. I hadn't wanted to tell Tamlin my real name in the beginning, but all the human myths about faeries were lies. Iron didn't hurt them. A name didn't give over control. Still, I hated giving Amaranthe my name. Hated the entire, bloodthirsty crowd knowing who I was.

Amarenthe nodded. Though Lucien no longer looked to be in pain, he wasn’t released either. I glared at his brothers, who snapped their teeth at me in fury as I ended Lucien’s torment too early. “And the mask, _Feyre_.” She said, clapping in a delighted way.

I sighed. Here goes. _You know,_ I mused, liking that I had someone to talk to. My father had believed in Gods. Believed they’d heard him if he thought to them, prayed to them—but I never had. Instead, I had Rhysand. _I’d started to get used to it. The lack of staring. The lack of disgust_.

I reached the spot where the magical adhesive would come on and off. I tapped it, and the mask clattered to the floor.

Amaranthe actually flinched backwards. Her eyes grew wide—so wide—and then her smile grew wider as she gave her tinkling laugh. “Oh, oh that is just _precious_.” She turned to Tamlin, whose own face had gone tight as he saw my face again after—a month. It had been a month since he'd given me the full-faced mask to blend in with his court. To hide my face. “Not only did you fall for a _human_ , but an abnormally disgusting one as well!”

I raised my crooked chin. And then invisible, magically-powered hands forced that chin sideways. I found myself, bound, looking up at Rhysand’s beautiful face. I steeled my heart for what I’d see there—the usual reaction of disgust and horror. Only his violet eyes met mine. Totally blank. They scanned my face. The cave in of my left cheekbone. The crookedly set angle of my incaved jaw. The dent in my forehead. The flattened, sideways aspect of my nose. The many, many scars that bubbled and twisted my face. _How_? His voice was a cool wind. Nothing else.

I supposed… that was good. It hurt, but it didn’t hurt too much. It didn’t twist that knife in my gut, didn’t make me _feel_ every nasty inch of my face. Instead, I felt… I didn’t know how I felt, seeing his gaze lock on mine. Unflinching. Cold.

 _I had my own Amaranthe once, only they broke while Amaranthe keeps_. I didn’t let myself think of the memories. I kept it at that, and his power released my chin. I looked back at Amaranthe, who was delighted by the ugly sight of me. “Oh, it get’s worse and worse the more I look!” She giggled. “I almost wish you had the mask back on—almost.” She gave me a wicked smile. “Oh, how positively abhorrent you are. Looking at you, it's terrifying.”

“I still prefer my face over yours.” I knew I shouldn’t have said it the second it came from my mouth.

Amarenthe’s smile grew stale on her face. “And what, exactly, is wrong with my face?” She seemed to recognize her plainness compared to most fae. And it was a sore spot for her.

“Oh, absolutely nothing.” I smiled, watching her eye twitch as she took in the mangled sight of me attempting to smile. All it did was widen my mouth, making the underbite of my caved in jaw that much more apparent. If I kept it up for too long, my face would start to spasm and I'd loose control of my tongue, so drool would fall down my chin. “You’re a work of art, Amaranthe. Truly.” I didn’t look at Rhysand, though I could feel his amusement rumble through my brain. “The sun dulls in comparison to your…” I squinted. “Ah… nicely shaped ears.”

In the crowd—someone coughed loudly. I didn’t look.

“Careful.” She hissed. “I can still harm _you_.”

“Just not the face. I worked really hard on my makeup today.”

She hissed. In seconds she was in front of my face, gripping its deformity in her clawed hand. I felt her nails break through the skin not hardened by scar tissue. “You are beginning to piss me off, girl.”

 _I think I’m supposed to be scared_. Too bad she’d sent Rhysand before I’d met her. I could still remember that horrible rage when he’d noticed I was there, hiding behind Lucien. That awful feeling in the air. Amarenthe was nothing in comparison. Or my own sister’s wrath, for that matter. But I cowed from her. I bit my tongue to push tears into my eyes and I begged her—begged her to let me go. That I was sorry. That I would be good. I did it till the satisfied, childish light filled her eyes and she flung my face away, strolling up the dais to her thrown like a satisfied cat.

Head bowed, hiding away from her, I tried to school my features into something suitably cowed.

“I will give you my riddle now, from the generosity of my heart.” I didn’t look up, in case I couldn’t school my face just right. “Solve this riddle, Feyre, and you and your High Lord, and all his court, and all the other courts may leave immediately with my blessing. Let’s see if you are indeed clever enough to deserve one of our kind.” Her dark eyes shone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone re-reading the fic or reading it for the first time wants me to put back the first two chapters (re-edited), lemme know


	2. A Bargain Struck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the worm-thingy.

Not a fever. Not a fever. Not a fever.

My eyelids were so heavy. They stung, tears dropping through the mud still caked on my face. I couldn’t go to sleep. I had to make sure my wound wasn’t infected, I had to… to…

The door actually did move then—no, not the door, but the darkness _around_ the door. It seemed to ripple. A distant fear coiled in my stomach as a male figure—broad, large, muscular, tall—formed out of the darkness. As if he had slipped in from the cracks between the door and wall, a shadow of a thing.

“So death has a figure,” I whispered, tears falling. I wished… no. It was done. It was time to die.

Rhysand then became corporeal. His violet eyes glowed in the dim light, as if filled with starlight. He slowly smiled from where he stood. “What a sorry state for Tamlin’s champion.”

“Fuck off.” The words were little more than a wheeze. My head was light and heavy at the same time. I didn’t even try to lift from my crumpled position on the wall.

He stalked closer with that feline grace of his and dropped into an easy crouch over my sprawled legs. He sniffed, giving a nasty look to the corner where I’d vomited. And pissed. And shit. Because no one had thought to give me anything to put it in. “That’s… that’s the _bad_ corner. The no roll-into-or-kick corner.” I gave a tired smile, which was not a smile at all. “Wanna be bad and go roll in it?”

“I think I’m good.” He cocked his head at my pain-filled snort.

“Get it, good—‘cus it’s the bad—nevermind.” I sighed. “You’re really pretty, is that why she chose you? Or was it conquest? Or—or,” I squinted, trying to remember what I was saying. “I think… I think your glowing.” It really seemed like he was. His white skin seemed to shine in the light. I blinked at the haze of it, trying to clear it from my tear stained eyes as his cool fingers grazed my brow. “It’s so easy to forget how bright the sky shines at night.” I murmured.

"You're delirious.”

“Nooooo— _you're_ delirious. I’m Feyre. Fe-y-ruh.” I smiled. “Why are you here, shiny star-man?”

 “I’ve come to help, darling. You made me a lot of money, you know. I figured I’d return the favor.”

“You bet on me.” I laughed, which was a low, hoarse thing that made the world spin like a top. I swallowed down vomit. “Scuse me. I think I need the bad corner.” I giggled again.

“Let me see your arm.” He said it too quietly.

“Say please.”

“Let me see it.” A growl ripped from him. Without waiting for my reaction, he grabbed my elbow and forced my arm into the dim light of the cell.

I cried out, feeling the fire explode in my head as it swam. All of my being was narrowed down to that single shard of bone sticking through my arm. “They can’t know.” I gasped, feeling strangely lucid as I saw the disgusting red and black look of my skin around the protruding bone. At the puss leaking out, a dull, yellow against the brown mud and shit covering my skin. “They’ll use it—I can’t—can’t do anything if they know my weakness.”

“You can’t hide this.” He said, examining the wound. A smile appeared on his sensual lips. “It’s wonderfully gruesome.”

“Fucking prick.”

“Oh, I thought I was star-man?” He taunted.

“You are not nice. Sometimes you are—but not now. Go.” I pointed with my good hand to the corner of vomit, piss, and shit. “Bad, bad boy.” It would have been funny—if my voice wasn’t so frail.

“Don’t you want me to heal your arm?” His fingers tightened on my elbow, digging into the sensitive flesh.

“What… cost?” I asked, wanting to sink back into delirium. I closed my stinging tear-filled eyes.

“Living among the fae has taught you some of our ways, it seems.”

I focused on the feeling of my good hand, of the dry mud and soggy hay beneath my fingernails.

“I’ll make a trade with you.” He said casually, gently setting my arm down. As it met with the floor, I had to open my eyes to not be swallowed down by my own turning head. “I’ll heal your arm in exchange for _you_. For two weeks every month, two weeks of my choosing, you’ll live with me at the Night Court.” As if… as if he was expecting to go home soon. As if he knew, soon, I'd get him out from Under the Mountain. I wondered what he was planning, wondered if he was acting nice to me because he knew he could use me to get home. “Starting after this messy three-trail business. Till then, I’ll just keep you with me in my rooms.”

It took me a long time to think. “You’re still… betting on me.” I frowned at him. “Why? What—would we do?”

“Whatever I want.” He shrugged, ignoring my first statement.

I considered him. “No sex. No putting my body through something I don’t want—while under the influence of my own mind and will. No putting my mind through something I don’t want, either. No torture.” Ah—there were other things I was forgetting. I closed my eyes tightly. “No, um… nighty-courty-cunt moves. Spiked heads or ripped off limbs. Or sticking me in a pit with a big ass worm.”

“I think I can manage the worm.” He laughed. “They’re rather hard to find.”

“Good. May they fucking burn, star-man.” I opened my eyes to smile at him. “One week. No forcing me to do anything I don’t wanna.”

“No deal, you’re going to have to do things you don’t want to do.” He shrugged, not looking apologetic at all. “But I can assure you, no sex. No torture. No mental manipulations. I like your mind the way it is.” He cocked his head, waiting.

It had been so easy for him to say that, ‘no sex’. Right—I’d forgotten for a second. My face—

“Well?” He snarled.

“Bitchy—so bitchy today.” I struggled to sit up, then gave up on it. I couldn’t even sit up. I was going to die. Now that hope was dangling in front of my face—no matter how much I told myself I was ready to die… if there was hope… “A week?”

“Ten days.”

“A week.”

He was silent for a long moment, his eyes travelling across my body, my face, meeting my gaze before he nodded sharply. “A week it is.”

“Fuck it, deal.” I sighed.

His magic filled around us. Compressing the air, taking away the flavors and smells I’d gotten used to. It was as if there was no room for air anymore, not with the predatory darkness taking up all the space. I stopped breathing, watching Rhysand's beautiful face. His strong cheekbones, his square jaw, his naturally honeyed skin, and violent star-filled eyes. His lips spread, a wild, abandoned joy filling his eyes—and then before I could brace myself, he’d grabbed my arm. There was a horrible, shooting pain then. And in my ears bone and flesh shattered, blood rushed out, and then—

Rhysand was still grinning when I opened my eyes. I had no idea how long I’d been unconscious. But I felt infinitely awake as I snapped my eyes to meet his. I could sit up from where I was slumped against the wall. The mud was gone, too. Other than the strange film on my skin, like old rubbed in oil, I was clean. So were my clothes.

I looked down to my left arm to make sure the bone was back in my skin. It was.

“What the fuck?” I hissed, snapping my eyes up to him.

Rhysand stood, running a hand through his short, silky looking dark hair. “It’s custom in my court for bargains to be permanently marked upon the flesh.” I thought of the black tattoo on his wrist.

I looked back down to my arm. My left forearm, wrist, and hand were covered in swirls and whorls of black ink. Even my fingers. Even my _nailbeds_ I realized, looking down through the murky tint of my nails to see that yeah, there were swirls under there, too. I flipped it over, looking at the large eye tattoo in the center of my palm. It was feline, its pupil split, looking cunning and thoughtful.

“Weird.” I poked the eye. I could have sworn in closed for a second—but no, tattoos didn’t move. “I want a better design.” I lifted my hand out to him. “Something bad ass. This’ll look like a lace glove from a distance. Give me—skulls or some shit. No no, skulls on _fire_.”

He snorted. “I’ll keep that in mind for the next bargain.”

“There won’t be a _next_ one.”

“Grateful, aren’t you?” He crooned.

“It’s so… permanent.” I flexed my fingers. “I’ve never gotten anything so permanent. Except for my face, but hey, what’ll’ya do?” I frowned up at him as he started to go back towards the door. Pure night lifted from his shoulders like smoke.

“Afraid of a certain High Lords reaction?” He taunted.

“Tamlin’s?” I frowned. “Oh— _oh_.” I laughed. “You think I came back for him.” It made sense, after all, the curse was supposed to be about love.

He froze, slipping back from shadows and into reality. “You didn’t?” He asked, turning towards me again.

“Well, sure, I guess a little bit of it was for him, and Lucien, and Alis.” I still felt the need to wrinkle my nose, even though it was an impossibility, the way it was formed to the right side of my face, the skin melded together after so many years. “I love him, but not enough to _die_ over. Or whatever this bullshit trial is.”

“Really?” He purred.

“I shouldn’t be telling you this, hu?” I sighed. He was easy to talk to, though. Maybe because he could read my mind and already knew what—who—I was.

“Tell me anyway.” He crouched down again.

“A secret for a secret.” I smiled at him wiggling my other hand. “And give me a badass skull—with flames.”

“I thought you said there wouldn’t be another bargain?” He arched an eyebrow.

“Silly Fae male.” I teased. “Didn’t I tell you I don’t do permanence?” I wiggled my hands again.

He snorted. The magic rose again and—his skin touched mine. The magic burst, popping, only inside my chest, and then it was over. No blinding pain. “Where is it?” I asked, eager. “Where where?” I looked at my arms. Nothing. “Where—”

“Check your ass.”

I looked up at his cocky grin. “No.” His grin grew wider. “You’re a dick!”

He laughed. “So—secret for a secret. It’s a deal. Why did you come here?”

“Because Tamlin gave my family money. It’s the thing, in the human world. You fae love your power—humans love money. It’s their version of magic, I guess.” I shrugged. “He did it because I asked, so they could be taken care of. Only, when I was let back home…” I frowned at my new, tattooed hand. At the eye in the palm. “I used to take care of them. It was my purpose in life. But they didn’t need me anymore because they have money now. I was just the bad reminder of harder times.” I looked up and tried to smile. Of course, it never worked. I couldn’t smile anymore. “I figured, why not? I’d come back to Prythian, have a fucking adventure or some shit. See this strange, magical world and all it could give me. But then I saw what happened to the mansion… I heard the truth—all of it, finally. And…” I looked at him, frowning.

“Do you ever feel like… like your so small and the world is so big. And everything is so fucked up. And it hurts, how fucked up it all is. The injustice, the cruelty, the imbalance of power… I figured a long time ago; I can either become the bad guy and watch it all burn down around me, or I can fight to make it better. Make the world… less fucked up. Even if I can only do a small bit.” I shrugged. “So I came back. Not really for Tamlin, though I do love him and do want to save him—but for me. So I can matter again, have a purpose, take care of people I care about. So I don’t become something I don’t want to be, swallowed up by all the selfishness and cruelty in the world.”

I waited for a reaction. For anything. He said nothing and his face was totally blank, the darkness swirling off him in little eddies. “Your turn.”

He blinked. “I think your beautiful.”

I recoiled. “ _Bastard_!” I hissed. “Don’t lie! Fucking—a secret for a secret, that was the deal—”

“You can’t break these deals, Feyre. It’s not how they work. They… _take_ from you, when you go against them. I don’t find loopholes, either. It’s a done thing. Secret for a secret.” He rose. “Yes, your face looks the way it does. I’m not going to tell you that it’s… pleasant to look at. It has too much pain for that.” He rolled his shoulders back, night leaking off him like he was half made of black mist. “But I read minds, remember?” He tapped his head. “I find they’re better. And yours is beautiful.” He tilted his head. “I haven’t laughed in this pit of a Mountain in fifty years.” He whispered. “Then you come strolling along, telling me I have bad taste in shoes when I’m seconds away from shattering your mind. And when you threw that spear at Amaranthe.” He shook his head, chuckling under his breath. “Beautiful. Never mind how you kept your promise, though I never asked you to.” He bowed to me.

I couldn’t say a thing to that. Couldn’t even think of what to feel. I’d wanted, a long, long time ago—back before Tamlin—to be considered beautiful. For one person to look at me and find value. I’d thought at the time that I’d wanted it to be my body but… my mind. Who I was… He turned and melted back into the darkness. As he fully disappeared, his cool-wind voice whispered: _Rest up, Feyre_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'm spelling Amarantha's name wrong? Pretend there's an a at the end instead of an e


	3. Wings and Ashes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is when she's cleaning lentils and stuff.

To the fury of my guards, I’d completed my first chore—as impossible as it was. But the next day, they smiled at me as they shoved me into a massive, dark bedroom, lit only by a few candles, and pointed to the looming fireplace. “Servant spilled lentils in the ash,” One of the guards grunted. He tossed a wooden bucket onto the stone floor.

“Clean it up before the occupant returns, or he’ll peel off your skin in strips.” The other said, giving a nasty, sharp yellow smile.

The door slammed, then locked shut. And I was alone.

I looked around. It looked like no one lived here. There was a bed, a fireplace, a table with three chairs, a doorway that might have been a bathroom. That was it. Empty. Bare. Not used or lived in, though apparently someone did. Maybe the occupant never used the room. Some candles on candelabras to light the space. And, of course, lentils in the damn ash.

I approached the darkened fireplace. Impossible.

I knelt before the fireplace.  _I got good eyes_ , I thought. And, if worse comes to worse, I could just sort with my fingers, feeling the lumps of the lentils. It would get ash everywhere, sure, but they never specified I had to be  _tidy_  about it. I crawled further into the fireplace to begin.

 

Fuck this.

Two hours later my eyes were burning and even though I’d combed through every fucking inch of the fireplace, there were always more lentils. More and more. The guards never said  _when_  the occupant would return—not that they would, consider the bare space of it—but just in case I kept the fire poker handy.

I closed my stinging eyes, then picked through the ashes again. My hands were black and stained—my new tattoo covered. My clothes had grown back from soot. The entire  _floor_  was covered in dirt. I searched for my fingers, knowing there couldn’t be more lentils—

The lock clicked. I lunged for the poker as I shot to my feet, my back to the hearth.

Darkness entered the room, flickering the candles in a breezeless gust. I gripped the poker harder, pressing into the stone of the fireplace, waving it around in case anything came at me from the front. Then… the darkness on the bed turned into a familiar form.

“Fucking fuck!” I yelled, throwing the poker down as it clanged against the stone. “Don’t  _scare_  me like that you fucking—fucking—” I shook my soot stained finger at him.

He arched a brow. “As wonderful as it is to see you, Feyre darling,” Rhysand said, sprawled on the edge of the bed, his head propped up by a hand, “Do I want to know why you’re digging through my fireplace?”

I hissed, frustrated tears leaking out as I dug my hands through my hair and tugged as hard as I could. The fear still rolled in my stomach, sitting hot and heavy. “You— _you_  are the big bad scary thing that’ll rip off my skin?” I laughed. “Fuck—I hate this place.” I released my head, feeling my hair stick up in crazy clumps. “They said I had to clean the lentils from your fireplace. Apparently, you’re a disgusting slob.” I sniffed at him, looking pointedly around the bare, empty room.

“Did they now,” He gave me a feline smile.

“Was this you?” I asked, pointing. “Because it’s not okay—it sucks. It’s  _impossible_. Don’t go fucking,” I waved my hand at him. “Being all insufferable and making my life harder.”

“Oh, it wasn’t me.” He considered me. “I think she or her cronies think I’ll have some fun with you, is all. Skin flaying and all that, it’s a personal pastime.” He flashed me a smile.

I considered him. “Or it’s a test for you.” I frowned. “You didn’t give them my name. Didn’t admit you knew me. And you said you bet on me during the first task. She didn’t seem pleased. That you’d called me… funny either.” I frowned at them, feeling suddenly shy. His last words rung in my head:  _your beautiful. Your beautiful._

I still didn’t know what I thought about that.

Rhysand sat up in a fluid motion, his forearms on his thighs. He had a ridiculous amount of grace for being such a big man. “Amaranthe plays her games,” He said simply. Like it didn’t matter. “And I play mine. It gets rather boring down here, day after day.”

“She let you out for Fire Night. And for the head thing. With the spikes.” I mimicked putting a head on an invisible spike.

“She asked me to put the head in the garden. As for Fire Night…” He looked at me from my ratted hair down to my bare, soot stained feet. “I had my reasons. Don’t think, Feyre, they didn’t cost me.” He smiled again, not meeting my eyes.

I frowned. “I won’t pretend to know what your life is like.” I said. “I won’t assume, either. But… I saw, the way you looked when Lucien called you…”

“Amaranthe’s whore.” He drawled.

I nodded. “That. Yeah. I know that look. It’s not the look that comes from a bad title said one too many times. It’s—” I put my hand on my chest. “Deeper, I saw that.” I frowned harder at his still, blank face. “Whatever your reasons, whatever your… lack of possibilities. I just—your uncomfortable.” I blew out a raspberry, thinking. “So, hey, tell me—how come you have so much power when the others don’t? I thought she robbed you guys. Did she not take yours or something?”

His eyes were still flat, dead. “Oh, she took my powers. This…” A strange feeling gripped my head, like a hand cradling my brain. I jumped, slamming into the fireplace, slipping on the ash, and falling flat on my ass. His once dead eyes danced as the pressure in my head disappeared. “It’s just a ghost, scraps of what I usually have. Your Tamlin has brute strength and shapeshifting; my arsenal is a far deadlier assortment.”

“So, you can’t shapeshift?” I asked, still on the floor. “It’s not some High Lord specialty?”

“Oh, all the High Lords can. Each of us has a beast roaming beneath our skin.” He smirked. “Roaring to get out. While your Tamlin likes fur. I like wings and talons.”

Curious, I got up onto my knees and then my feet. “Can you shift now?” I asked, a little eager to see.

“So many questions little human.”

The darkness hovered around him and began to writhe and twist and flare as he rose to his feet on the edge of his bed. I blinked, and it was done.

“Not a full shift,” He said, looking at the razor-sharp talons that had replaced his fingers. Below his knees was darkness, and more talons instead of toes. “I don’t particularly like yielding to my… baser side.”

I couldn’t give a shit about the talons though. Flaring out behind him were massive black, membranous wings. Likes a bats, like the Attors. He tucked them neatly behind him, a single claw at the apex of each wing peaking over his shoulders near his head. “Flare them out.” I said.

He arched an eyebrow but did what I’d asked. I watched them delicately move outwards, expanding. They moved on either side of him, huge. The light shone through the thinner part of his wings, showing the veins underneath. I stepped closer. “What’s it feel like?” I asked, entranced.

“The wings? Like wings—I suppose—”

“No, no— _flying_.” I stood by his side, feeling the heat from his arm on my own as I leaned in close to inspect his flared-out wings. My breath reflected back to me. I poked it. The skin was taunt.

And then gone. I jumped as the vanished into black smoke. The talons and feet, too, so only the well dressed and unruffled man was left behind. “It feels like nothing else in the world.” He shrugged.

“Nice not answer.” I said dryly. I moved away from him. “So, do you know the answer to that damn riddle?”

He crossed his arms. “Cheating? Really?”

“Fuck yes, cheating.” I lifted my chin high. Well, I tilted my head up and my chin  _would_  have been high.

“After she beat you, that first day, she ordered us not to help you.” He smirked at me. “Even if I felt like helping you, I couldn’t. She gives orders, and we all bow to them.” He did his nervous little tick to pick up lint from his clothes. He stopped midway between, glancing up at my eyes as if he realized he’d been caught. “It’s a good thing she likes me, isn’t it?” I felt there was nothing I could say to that. “If she ordered us to stop breathing, we’d have to obey that to. She owns us.” I felt my chest tighten, concern rippling through me like he’d plunked a stone into my gut.

He snapped his fingers. The soot, dirt, and ash vanished from my skin and clothes and leaving me clean again. “There. A gift, for having the balls to even ask.”

I sighed. “What about that?” I pointed to the dirty hearth and the buckets. “Get that done too.” I looked at his lazy, grinning face. “Come on. Snap.” I snapped. “Do that magic.”

“Bit power hungry, aren’t you darling?” He snarled. “Ordering me around as if I’m not a High Lord.”

“Aw, is Rhy-Rhy getting his leather bat wings all in a twist?” I taunted.

His eyes flashed. “Rhy-Rhy?”

“I like it.” I pointed to the hearth. “C’mon big guy. Let’s get to it. I did most of the heavy lifting. But you can take credit, if you want to keep your manly pride.”

“You—” He snorted, shaking his head. “You’re insufferable.” He snapped his fingers.

“Nooo—” Shy again, I tried to give him a smile. “I’m beautiful, remember?”

“I can already tell it’s getting to your head.” Yet he snapped. The hearth was clean and the bucket was filled with lentils, the ash gone.

“My  _beautiful_  head.”

He sighed. I walked towards a chair and sat, putting my feet close to my lap as my knees bent over the sides of the chair. “So, secret time.”

He sat on his bed, his elbows going back to his knees. “A secret… hmmm…” He tilted his head. “Well, technically I’ve shown you mine already.”

“You have?” I asked.

“Yes. My wings. Very, very few people see them and live to tell. Even less know about them. You will consider them a secret because I do.” And my ass tingled from the sensation of the bond saying that it was, in fact, a secret. “Your turn,” He said sweetly as I rubbed my right ass cheek.

“I can’t believe you put it somewhere I can’t even see it’s awesomeness.”

“C’mon. Secret time.” He taunted.

“Hmmm…” A secret. One that was only secret  _here_. It seemed important, somehow, to match the kind of secrets we told each other. “I… like music.” I murmured. I grabbed the arches of my feet, staring down at them. “More than that, I need it. Live for it. It brings me alive.” I peaked up at him. “I don’t want them to know that about me. Don’t… want them to use it against me. If they even could.”

He said nothing. The door swung of its own accord suddenly, revealing the guards who’d dragged me here. Rhys waved a lazy hand at their startled expressions. “She accomplished her task. Take her back.”

They grabbed for me, but he bared his teeth in a smile that threatened violence. They halted. “No more household chores, no more tasks.” He said, his voice back to that erotic caress. I’d almost forgotten he used it. Their yellow eyes went glazed and dull at his voice, their sharp teeth gleaming in their slack mouths. “Tell the others, too. Stay out of her cell and don’t touch her—” I hadn’t even known that was an option. Fear gripped me, tight and hard. “If you do, you’re to take your own daggers and gut yourself. Understood?”

Dazed, numb nods answered back. Then they blinked and straightened. They beckoned me to come forward but didn’t dare reach for me again.

 _Be careful, Rhysand_. I said, standing up to follow them.  _I’m sure of it—this was a test for you. I think you failed it_. I cast him a concerned glace.

Rhysand only smiled at me, lazy, heavy eyes hiding whatever he was thinking. “You’re welcome.” He purred as I walked out.


	4. Dance in the Lap of Danger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the first night of roofied dancing

I woke up with a pounding head. Groaning, I turned away from the flickering heat and light in the room, grabbing for an extra pillow. I hugged the soft thing to my chest, curling my knees as my skin touched the cool parts of the sheets my body hadn’t warmed. The bed was so soft, the comforter on top of me heavy and fluffy.

I sighed. If only my head would feel better—

And it did. Like a caress, something touched me, then smoothed. The pain vanished in a second. And then a cool, amused voice said, “Here—the reason why you’re hung over is because your dehydrated. This’ll help.”

I squinted my eyes open. I was in a room—not my dungeon cell, but a room. Rhysand’s, I realized, looking at the bare wall, the lack of life. I turned, frowning, to see he had put a pitcher of water on the nightstand, though he was still sitting at the table, writing out letters. His black clothes were tight on his frame and his back was to the roaring fire.

I… “Why—” I coughed at the ache in my throat.  _Ugh—what_?

“Drink.” He ordered.

I reached for the water, ignoring my swirling, painted skin as I grabbed for the cup and drowned it. I was delighted when it refilled back up. “You’ll give yourself a stomach ache.” He said, after the third pitcher.

“Fuck you, my stomach is…” It was hurting, actually. Snarling, I shoved the pitcher down. “What happened last night? Why am I here?”

“A week, remember?” He looked up at me finally, arching his eyebrows. “That was the deal. A  _full_  week. I suppose, I could give you back to the dungeon if you really want me to…”

“No, no, that’s not necessary.” His insufferable smirk made me narrow my eyes. “What happened last night? What did you make me do?” All I could remember was the humiliation of being dressed up in gauzy, see through clothes that didn’t cover a single inch of me. I’d even been painted, as if to highlight the fact that anyone could see my nipples through the bright “cloth”.

“Make you?” He snorted. “You really do have selective memory, don’t you darling? I told you—the bond makes it so I can’t  _make_  you do anything.”

“You said the wine made me… suggestive.” I put my knees to my chest, hugging them to me to cover my revealed chest. I was still wearing the same clothes, still had the paint on my skin.

“That’s what normally happens, yes.” He drawled, going back to his papers. “You are the only person I have ever met who takes the dark fae wine and decides to be  _even more_  stubborn. In the course of the party you made a rhyme about how ugly Amaranthe is, slapped Lucien’s brother across the face, started a wine drinking competition that had several of the Winter Courtier passing out, bullied the lesser fae into giving up their little torture captive so you could dance with him—and then danced with me.” He shook his dark, silky head. “It was a marvel to watch, really, and even more of a pain to clean up.” He looked up at me, violet eyes glowing with starlight and warmth. “It was fun.”

 “I… danced with you?” I couldn’t remember a thing about last night. Not a thing. As soon as the drink had warmed my veins, I was waking up here. Though I could remember music, so strong and vibrant it had felt like my bones were a part of it.

“Yes.” He purred.

“What… kind of dancing?”

He motioned me over with a crook of his finger, putting his papers down on the table to fully lean back in his chair. He waited there, one ankle on his knee. “I’ll show you.”

I thought about it. He scared me. Whatever this was, it scared me. Deeper and wilder than any fear I’d had in a very, very long time. Mostly because he was asking for trust and I knew the only reason why I _could_ trust him was because, at the moment, our goals lined up. But later...

I got out of bed, looking down at my painted limbs to see that the only smudges were on my hips. Like hands had grabbed me and held me there. And my fingers, like someone had grabbed my hand. I peaked up at him again, to watch his patiently waiting face. And then I walked over.

The second I was close to him, he reached forward, spun me around, and slammed me down onto his lap. I locked up as his hands came up to rest on my hips, where the tattoos were smudged. His lips touched my ear, and I knew the paint there was smudged, too. “Like this—only you weren’t stiff as a board. In fact, your hips were rolling rather nicely.”

I shook. “No.”

“Yes.” He let me go. I got off his lap as quickly as I could, spinning around to him, not able to hide me anxiety and fear as he looked calmly up at me. “But again, no coercion.” He nodded to me. “It was all you, darling. Though I did have to ask you to stop after a while.” His grin was daring, wry. “We promised each other no sex through the bond, and well, you were going to make me cum. Not that  _you_  seemed to mind. Apparently, if it’s consensual we can do whatever we want.” He purred at me, eyes holding mine.

I was breathing too hard. I couldn’t remember this. I couldn’t remember any of it. “Show me.” I demanded. Something in my voice made him blink, his sensual mocking smile gone. “Show me—I don’t believe you.”

He hissed.

“Show me!” I reached for him, grabbing his shirt in my fists as I tried to shake his frame. Of course, it didn’t work. “Show me that it was my—”

There was only the pressure of his magic to warn me:

_He had to grab her, again and again, to prevent her from going over there and stopping the court from torturing that boy some more. Again. The last time had nearly gotten them killed, and she wouldn’t listen to a thing he told her._

_He looked down at her now, glad that the wine had at least given her a one-track mind. He’d put her on his lap just to still her for a moment. Just to keep track of her while he relaxed. To stop her from singing that delightful little song about Amaranthe—for slapping any more Courtiers. From saving that little human man—her kin. Of course, he hadn’t expected her little perpetual, whirlwind of a body to focus on_ him _. He looked down now, down the slope of her loose body to see it all. The peak of her tight nipples through the fabric and tattoos, the way her tight stomach muscles shifted under her skin as her hips did some kind of delightful rolling, rounding motion without ever making her torso move. Her legs were splayed wide over his, showing their power as she kept herself upright._

_Her mind was blank, peaceful. Not a thought passed through other than the sensations she was feeling as she rolled around his hardened cock in time with the music._

_It had been a pleasurable little surprise. The second he’d placed her on his lap—she’d started. No shy movements, none of that self-conscious, self-deprecating nonsense, she’d just started moving. Slow, grinding sways that he felt mesmerized by. He watched again, the sway of her as he felt her ass taunt him. His balls were tightening as if she wasn’t just rubbing on him through layers of clothes—but the bond wasn’t reacting. Apparently, if she wanted it, it was okay._

_He flicked his eyes up to look at Tamlin. The fool hadn’t taken his eyes away from them for hours, staring at him and Feyre as if his looks could kill. Burn them up. It was delightful._

_He grabbed her hips and winked at Tamlin. Keeping the man’s furious eyes, he put his lips to Feyre’s ear and licked at the shell—_

_The sound she made pushed him closer to orgasm. That little soft, pleading sound dug right into his chest and twisted. Her round hips shifted, and she used her ass to push up and down, her hands going up to grab either side of his head, nails scratching his scalp slightly. He wished he could give her what she wanted. Wished he could lick her ear more, maybe reach down between her widely spread thighs where she was presented to everyone in front of him. To Tamlin. But her mind wasn’t there—so he stilled himself and let every ounce of hatred and satisfaction show in his smile as he watched Tamlin’s rage festering—_

I blinked. Rhysand’s face was smooth, blank. “Better?”

“That was… the truth?” I was still breathing hard.

“Yes.”

I looked down at his lap, frowning. I still couldn’t remember. Couldn’t remember doing that, couldn’t remember the little flickers of sensation he’d felt through my head at the time. “It’s not consent, by the way.” I said, looking back up at him. “It’s not.”

“I know that.” He rolled his eyes and went back to his letters. “The bathroom is there.” He pointed. “Go wash up.”

I ran.

 

Rhysand was gone by the time I got out of the cold tub. I peaked around in my towel, warry that he’d be there—but nothing. The room was empty. The fire still roaring.

It was a relief. I don’t know if I could look him in the eyes anymore. If I could deal with whatever stream of shame and shock and—and yes, lust that built because of the party. Because of what I’d done, unencumbered and drugged up. He’d been kind, not to push me. But what I’d done…

I could still remember the rage in Tamlin’s face and eyes from Rhysand’s memories.

I’d given myself to Tamlin. Enjoyed what he could give me and even given something back. With him, sex had been good. Lovely even. Sensations that I could appreciate instead of drown in. Because there was love between us. Because I could trust him, had known him. But Rhysand, for all his help, all his mocking, was a stranger. And I’d…

I’d never be able to give that to Tamlin. Never unashamedly grind on him for hours, taking my pleasure and I gave it while my face was out and people mulled around us. Never.

Shivering, I reached for the chest at the corner of the room rather than going for the thin gown again. I found a black shirt and black underwear to cover me, which both smelled like the wind and citrus scent of Rhysand. The shorts were tight around my hips and the shirt draped me enough to cover the sight of the shorts and my hands—but it was clothes. Real clothes.

And, because no one was here, because, for the first time in a long time I felt… safe—I started my warm ups. I stretched my aching muscles, going through familiar positions as my mind calmed. And then, with a song in my head, I began to dance.

 

The week with Rhysand passed in a kind of blur. Every night I was taken by the wraiths to be painted and dressed up in different colors of different gossamer gowns. Cut in all sorts of revealing styles, the only thing they had in common was their thinness and inability to cover anything. One night, Rhysand even made me go out with my chest completely bare.

When I woke up from another blank night, sometimes he was there, sometimes he wasn’t. He was in his room usually for an hour a day at any given point in time—to eat, to look over his array of paperwork, to stare into the fire and brood. He’d give a report on the previous night, telling me that yes, I’d danced, yes, I’d tried to piss off Amaranthe again, yes, Tamlin was still upset. But he never showed me what I’d done in the night again. And I never asked.

Things were odd between us. The easy banter was gone and I felt small and fragile next to him, vulnerable in a way that made me sit quietly and watch the fire while he was there. Sometimes he’d try to draw me into conversation, but it always failed. I couldn’t—not after remembering what I’d done, what we’d both done. Not while knowing it was still happening. Because, apparently, my fuzzy brained mind under the fae wine didn’t care what I felt when I was sober. In those moments, I lived on pure instinct: to fight, to argue, to dance, and to feel Rhysand up.

A few occasions he reported me dancing alone in the middle of the room, not paying attention to anything or anyone. Other nights, after eating food left out or being steered away from starting a fight with someone—I’d just come up to him. One times I’d licked his neck. Another time I’d tried untying his pants. One time I’d straddled him. All non-existent memories. All told with Rhysand’s insufferable smirk. As if he could feel my shame and was taunting me about it.

But when he wasn’t there, I enjoyed the pleasures of his room. I enjoyed the bed, the bath, the open floorspace. In those moments, I took in every available ounce of time I could to dance. Till my muscles screamed and I fell into bed, sweaty and shaking. Only to get back up and do it all again.

 

The painting and dressing finished quickly when I stopped trying to wiggle out of it. The wraiths again said nothing to me as they put in me a blood orange gossamer gown that had a high neckline and a bolt of fabric that swam down to my stomach, covering everything but the sides of my breasts and chest and left my back completely open.

I was feeling the fabric when Rhysand entered the room, dismissing the wraiths who disappeared into the walls. “Where do you even get these things?”

He ignored me. “Your second trail is tomorrow night.” He said. The gold and silver thread in his black tunic—which I’d worn three days ago to dance in—shown in the candlelight. From the smell of the shirt, he hadn’t washed it since then.

I’d lost count of the days. But it seemed about right. A month  _had_  passed since the worm. “I wonder what it’ll be—” I mused, unable to look at him.

“Something awful, of course.” He said, laughing.

“Of course.” I looked down, away.

“You know, I won’t  _bite_  you.” He sighed, stalking into the room. “Stop acting like some—”

“Scared little human?” I smiled softly over his shoulder. “I  _am_  a scared little human, Rhysand.” I looked at his eyes. “You have been kind to me, and you have also been very unkind to me—I am scared of you because of that. Because of what I’ve given, because of how you might use it.”

“Still no trust?” He arched an eyebrow.

“Tell me your plans and what you want from me, and I’ll trust.” I shrugged. “Secret for a secret.” We hadn’t done it once, since that day with the lentils.

Rhysand didn’t take the offer up, though. “Were you this prickly with Tamlin when he had you captive?” He asked, leaning against a table that held the paint and brushes on it. The clothes I’d grabbed from Rhysand’s chest and had taken off so they could paint me.

“Worse.” I smirked. “I knew he wouldn’t hurt me, so I was… cruel.” I looked down at my hands. One matte black, with swirls under the nails, the other shiny with paint that still looked wet. Yet identical, beautiful. Like shadow laced skin. “All I wanted was to go home. But he never treated me the way you do. Like a captive, a slave.”

“No? And how could he? Not with all that shame from his father and brothers’ brutality always weighing him down, the poor, noble beast. But—perhaps if he learned a few things about cruelty, about what it means to be a  _true_  High Lord, it would have kept the Spring from falling.”

 _Your court fell too._  I watched him.  _Did your cruelty serve you any better? Or does it just make you feel better, to be among the monsters and villains and know your one of them_?

Sadness thrummed, deep and strong inside of him. I couldn’t see it—not a flicker in his violet eyes, not an inch of it in the way he held himself. He still leaned there, a cruel, smiling, sensual predator. Yet that sadness was there. I could  _feel_  it, deep inside of me, coming from him. I felt my gaze drift to my palm.

What kind of bond had he given me?

“You do her bidding. You warm her bed. Yet you don’t have the freedom to do what you want—like with the Fire Night, you said it… cost you. Were you one of the High Lords that sold allegiance to Amaranthe? You’re her closest… ah—ally, I suppose. Yet you’re forced to live down here.” I tilted my head. “But your court is  _not_  here. Are you here on your own free will? Some kind of bargain?”

The sadness I’d felt was gone. Cold, hard rage glittered in his eyes as he watched me. I could have sworn there was a shadow on the wall behind him in the shape of wings. “What I do or have done for my Court is none of your concern.”

“Ah—for your court. Not for power. Not for  _you_. You’re protecting your people from this.” I watched him. “That’s why they aren’t here. Your…” I felt my eyes widen. “Your pimping yourself out to protect them?”

“What—is pimping?” He asked, his voice soft, dangerous.

“Selling your body. Another way to say whoring.” I waved my tattooed hand in the air. “You know that, you can read my mind. Stop evading.”

“Stop probing.” He snarled. He was in front of me in seconds. “You don’t talk to me for  _days_. Days, Feyre. And now you feel entitled to pick through my secrets?”

“You haven’t offered any.” I murmured, watching the light go out of his violet eyes. “And I can’t help if I see you.”

He stared at me for a long, tense moment. “Cauldron curse the day your unleashed into the world, Feyre.” He murmured. Then he stepped back. “The festivities await,” He gestured to the door behind him.

I followed the hand. “What do you want with me? Do you see me as your way out? Or just your way to torment Tamlin?”

“Tormenting Tamlin is my greatest pleasure,” He said, giving that cold, sexual smile. “And maybe you are—maybe you’re the first glimmer of hope to breaking this damn curse I’ve had in… fifty years.” He shrugged. “Either way, there’s no real reason for a male to enjoy the presence of a female.” He flashed his teeth at me, baring them.

“You saved my life.”

“Which  _you_  still haven’t thanked me for.” He grabbed my bonded hand and we walked to the throne room in silence. Something was different this time, I noticed. Something was off. Rhysand was still and lazy next to me, always the well groomed male, but his eyes… I followed them to see Lucien’s brothers stalking towards us, their eyes, their eager, hungry, wicked eyes pinned on me. And then Amaranthe’s clear bell-voice rang out over the music, summoning him right on time.

He put a hand on my back and nudged me along.  _Stay close and keep your mouth shut_. The crowd parted like he was a fire.

They revealed what was waiting for Rhysand. A brown-skinned High Fae male was sobbing on the floor before the dais. Amaranthe was smiling at him with her snake smile, looking so intent she didn’t even raise her eyes up to acknowledge us. Beside her, Tamlin was utterly impassive. A beast declawed.

Something about his lack of will, his passiveness in all of this—it pissed me off.

Rhysand flicked his eyes to me.  _Stay at the edge. Don’t let anyone touch you_. I obeyed, keeping with the crowd as he walked forward. I looked to Tamlin, willing him to look at me. Yet his eyes stayed focused on the Queen and the male before them.

Amaranthe was caressing her ring, watching every moment Rhysand made as he left me to walk towards her. “The summer boy,” She said, smiling delightfully at the man cowering at her feet, “tried to escape through the exit to the Spring Court lands. I want to know why.”

I looked to the Summer High Lord standing off to the side. He was a handsome man with white hair, beautiful crystal blue eyes, and skin like rich mahogany. It was his man lying before Amaranthe’s throne. I watched his thin mouth, watched how his captivating eyes darted between Amaranthe and Rhysand. I’d seen him before, during the first task. He’d been up high, nearly shining with a golden light that had distracted me for a second. Now he was muted, drab. I wondered if he was hiding what little power he had to glow, or if Amaranthe had taken away his light as she’d interrogated her subject.

Either way, he was guilty. It wasn’t obvious to see, but he was. The Summer Lord did not want Rhysand to go into his mind. It was like he was… preparing. For whatever wrath Amarenthe would pull out once she learned his secrets.

I looked to Rhysand.  _What will you do? He’s guilty of something_. Rhysand, of course, didn’t react. I stood back, crossing my arms, waiting. In a way, this would be my test of him. To see what kind of man he was. One that blindly followed a woman he obviously detested, or one that fought back—my eyes flickered to Tamlin at the thought.

The Summer fae cringed as Rhysand came strolling up to him. There were tears in his blue eyes and he moaned at the sight of Rhysand. “P-p-please,” He gasped out.

 _If I had power,_  I thought _, I’d stop this. Any way I could, I’d stop this._ But I had no power—neither did any of them, really.

 _So what do you do when you have no power and you see injustice_? What could I do here, how could I help? I scanned the crowd, seeing only vaguely familiar faces, some drawn, some blank, others excited. I looked again to the Summer High Lord. What could I do?

Rhysand’s shoulders were loose, giving no reaction. But the Summer boy tensed, going taunt as his mind was held. I looked again to the Summer High Lord, seeing the pain on his face. Real, unmasked pain. I’d never seen a High Lord do that—show their emotions.

 _He’s new_. I realized. Summer Courts was one of the courts that had rebelled. No way Amaranthe had left the High Lord of a rebellion court live—this man I was seeing was new. Like me, the pain was raw. I stepped forward, wandering what I could do—

“He wanted to escape.” I stopped in my tracks at Rhysand’s power. He didn’t hold me taunt, but he kept me frozen. Kept my mouth shut. I screamed silently at him to let me go. To not kill the poor, shaking boy. “To get to Spring Court across the wall and flee south to the human territories. He had no accomplices, as far as I can see. No motive beyond his own pathetic cowering.” He jerked his chin at the puddle of piss growing underneath the male.

 _Don’t kill him!_  I begged. Even as I saw the Summer High Lord sagged, as if he was willing to sacrifice one of his own for whatever Rhysand had hidden from Amaranthe.

 _What is this world_? I asked, feeling myself freeze inside.  _That a life can be sacrificed so easily?_  Rhysand dropped away his power from my body as the fight left me.

I watched Amaranthe slouch and pout, obviously disappointed. “Shatter him, then.” She flicked a hand at the High Lord of Summer, who still hadn’t schooled his face. “You may do what you want with the body afterwards.” The High Lord of Summer bowed, as if he’d been given a gift, and looked to his subject with open tenderness. That subject, now calm, sat on the floor, hugging his knees and weeping still—but with relief.

I looked to Amaranthe.  _You are a monster,_ I thought to her.  _But at least you’re a dumb one_.

Rhysand slipped his hand out of his pocket, dangling it by his side. I watched the shadows there, flicking in and out, exposing and unexposing talons like he was fighting something.  _Can you make it so he doesn’t die? Only pretend to shatter him till he can be smuggled out of here—back to Summer?_  I wanted that. I wanted that to be a thing with all my heart.

“I’m growing bored, Rhysand.” Amaranthe said with a sigh, her legs opening beneath her elegant dress as if in suggestion—or threat. Still, her hand fiddled with the piece of bone around her neck, Jurian’s blue eye rolling to take everything in.

Rhysand’s hand curled into a fist.

The fae male’s eyes went wide. Then glazed. He slumped over in the puddle of his own piss, blood leaking from his nose, ears, and pooling in with the yellow liquid.

Just like that, he was dead. I forced my knees to lock so I wouldn’t fall to the floor. I forced my face to grow flat so I could keep my emotions at bay and not cry.

“I said shatter his mind, not his brain,” Amaranthe snapped.

The crowd murmured, some hissed. The Summer High Lord again forgot to school his face, the relief and sadness easily exposed on his beautiful features. Tamlin, of course, said nothing, did nothing. In some ways, I admired the Summer High Lord more. For being brave.

Rhysand shrugged, hands sliding back into their pockets. “Apologies, my queen.” He turned away without being dismissed and strode past me to the back of the throne room. I followed as the crowd parting around him, holding in my trembling, my sadness.

The crowd stayed far, far away. “Whore,” Some of them hissed softly, the disgust evident on their faces. One of them, a Winter Court member, said it first as Rhysand thundered past. Though Rhysand didn’t react… I walked up to the Winter courtier. I waited till he looked at me and then I slapped him soundly across the face. A silence followed the clap—and I could feel Amaranthe’s curious stare from the other side of the crowd. The word had been whispered so softly that there was no way she could have known why I did it. Yet, she liked the unrest it produced enough to not stop me.

I leaned into the Winter males face, ignoring the violent shock of horror and disgust as he took me in, his nearly colorless eyes—like shards of ice—roaming my features. I bared my broken teeth at him.

A strange tug filled my chest, like a string had been tied to my sternum and gently yanked. I turned without comment to follow Rhysand. Others had been talking to him as he waited patiently for me. Telling him that he’d done good for killing the traitor. As I caught up to him, he started his unhurried, unruffled walk again. Yet his mind spoke to me as we left the crowd:  _There are worse things, in this court, then death_.

 _And what a world it is, for that to be true._ I looked at him.  _Would it be possible, to smuggle him out?_

 _No. Not unless I had the power to dig into every mind in this court and show them what they wanted to see. But I don’t have that power anymore_. I shivered, awed that he had that power, at some point in time. And scared.

He didn’t pause once on the long trek across the throne room to the table of food and wine at the back. He handed me the goblet without comment and downed another one.  _Rhysand…_  He didn’t acknowledge me.  _You have permission, from stopping me from doing acting out tonight—I think… I think I’m going to be very, very bad_. The rage inside me was like a billow, a force of nature itself. It eddied in my stomach, stealing my limbs that wanted to shake from fear. I downed the wine. But before it could take me into oblivion, I said,  _Just, remember, this is not consent._


	5. Keep me Sane

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is after the second trial

I wept for hours. For myself. For Tamlin. For Lucien. For the fact that I should be dead but had survived. I cried for everything I’d ever lost, for my sisters, for my parents, for the injuries I’d received and the ones I hadn’t. I cried for my joy to dance. I cried for my desire to be held by Tamlin, and looked at, and loved.

I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t breathe. I also couldn’t beat her. She’d won today—she didn’t know it—but she’d won.

I would never free Tamlin. Never save him as he’d saved me. And that was it. That was why I was here, I realized. Why I’d come back. Not for some valiant, wonderful, world-saving altruism. But because he had saved me by taking me to his home, by giving my family the life they deserved. He had saved me, and by luck, I’d been given the chance to save him back. Only now I couldn’t—would never be able to. I would never leave this tomb. I would never dance again, never see the sun again. And I would never prove to myself that I was worthy. I was just an ignorant, ugly human _fool_.

The walls closed in. the ceiling dropped. I wanted to be crushed; I wanted to be snuffed out and taken away by hot, sliding bars. Every drop of blood sizzled away. Every piece of skin and bone flayed.

All I’d ever wanted out of life was to be loved. To be needed. And I was unworthy of it in every way.

I felt the pressure of dark power without looking up from my hands. I didn’t flinch as footsteps approached. I didn’t bother hoping that somehow Tamlin would come. That somehow he’d sense my need and be brave and hold me, if only for a minute. Just a minute.

But he knew, probably, how unworthy I’d be of that minute.

“Still weeping?” I didn’t raise my face up from my hands. “You’ve beaten her second task. There’s no need for tears.”

I wept harder and he laughed. The stones reverberated as he knelt before me and though I tried to fight him, his grip was firm as he grabbed my wrists and pried my hands from my face. I looked up, watching the world through my tears. The walls weren’t moving, the room was open. No colors, but shades of darkness, of swirling night. And star-flecked violet eyes, which were bright and full of color and light and life.

How could he look at me? He knew what I was, I had no doubt. He could read minds. He knew what a sad, pathetic thing I was. How I needed other to live. How I couldn’t even meet their needs.

He gave me a lazy smile before he leaned forward.

I tried to pull away, but his hands were shackles. I could do nothing as his mouth met my damaged cheeks and the hot trail of his tongue licked away the tears. It froze my limbs as something equally hot and wet ripped itself through my body, meeting my core. I didn’t move as he moved to my other cheek, liking another path of salt. And then another. My body was taunt and loose, curving towards him without thought as I burned and melted, as more pores opened and met the cold air.

I sucked in one sharp breath as his tongue danced along the damn edges of my lashes. Something hot and needy was filling me—but emptying me at the same time. I could feel my core, feel the way it clenched to remind me that there was nothing there. That there could be something there.

I jerked away, not even realizing he’d loosened the grip on my wrists. His dark chuckle moved across the room as I flung for the corner of my cell—a good corner, not the rank one. I wiped my face free of his saliva as I glared at him.

He smirked, then sat down against the wall across from me. “I figured that would make you stop crying.”

 “Your cruel.” I hissed. “A cruel, vile man.” I’d seem him use his sexuality a dozen—if not a hundred times. To protect himself, to hide himself, to attack others. Now he was doing it to taunt me. _Was the nights with the wine not enough? Now you have to prove how utterly you control me while I’m sober?_ Because he did control me. I felt so calm in his presence, so brave. It made me want to be around him, share things with him that he had no right to know, exposing me layer by layer. And now he was shoving my abhorrent need for his physical beauty like he could use it to stab me in the heart and ruin me from the inside out, without ever needing to expose a single vulnerability to anyone else.

“As usual, your gratitude is overwhelming.” He drawled.

“Go the fuck away—asshole.”

He didn’t pay attention to me, though. “Who’d have thought the self-righteous human girl couldn’t read?”

“Keep you fucking mouth shut about it.”

“Me? I wouldn’t _dream_ of telling anyone. Why waste that kind of knowledge on petty gossip?” His eyes glowed.

“You’re a disgusting fucking prick.” I hissed, wanting to claw at him. Punch him. _Hurt_ him as he’d hurt me.

“I’ll have to ask Tamlin if this kind of flattery won his heart.” He groaned as he stood. The soft, deep-throated, completely male noise traveled along my bones, down into the molten core of me that was still active, still wanting. His eyes met mine, his slow smile exposing my secrets between the two of us.

“Fuck you.”

“I think you want to.” He mused, grinning wider as I screamed at him, throwing useless molding hay at the air between us.  

“I’ll spare you the escort duties tomorrow.” He said, walking to the door. “But the night after, I expect you to be looking your finest.” He gave me a grin to taunt me. But he didn’t dissolve into darkness, he didn’t disappear as I trembled. “I’ve been thinking of ways to torment you,” He murmured, “When you come to my court. I’m wondering: will forcing you to read be as painful as it looked today?”

He was vanished into shadow before I was fully up. I still kicked the stone where he’d been though, cursing him in my head. I paced the length of my cell, my need turning into pure fire that licked my veins as I cursed and spat and snarled into the eye in the center of my palm.

I took me a while—once the fire had died and exhaustion took its place—to realize that Rhysand had saved me again. Whether he knew it or not, he’d kept me from shattering completely, distancing myself from the pain of my failures.

\---

What followed the second trail was a series of days that I didn’t care to really pay attention to. A darkness had settled over me, a familiar thing that I knew, but had thought I’d left behind completely once I’d healed from the barn, and my broken face, and the shame they’d left in me like seeds.

I began to look forward to the wine Rhysand sent my way. Began to look forward to a night of loosing myself and not thinking a fucking thing. And in the mornings after, I slept. Or I dozed. Or I stared at the shadows that flickered from the ever-burning fire inside the room. The desire to dance had left me behind. Eating had left me behind.

I stopped contemplating Amaranthe’s riddle—it was impossible. Especially for an illiterate, ignorant human.

Thinking about Tamlin at all, even if in a round-about way like the riddle, made everything worse. I’d beaten two of Amaranthe’s tasks but I knew—without any doubts—that the third would kill me. After what had happened to her sister, what Jurian had done, she was all wrong and twisted up inside. She’d never let me leave alive. I couldn’t really blame her, either; I doubted I would ever forgive or forget something done to Nesta or Elain, no matter how much time had passed. 

I stopped thinking about it. I stopped trying to think at all. Instead, I sat in the certainty that I was going to die soon.

I’d told Rhysand before that I didn’t fear him killing me. That it would happen eventually, days, weeks, years, hadn’t mattered. But my words to him felt like bravado, slowly crumbling away into dust. I’d known somehow that he wouldn’t kill me. Now, with no such assurances, the future I’d dreamed about seemed so… childish. So simple. My life was like a drop of water in a sea.

So I drank the wine with greed. I stopped caring about who I was or what had once mattered to me. I stopped thinking about movement, of song, about the green of Tamlin’s eyes, about the simple pleasure of getting Lucien to laugh or Alis to tell me a story—about all the things I had wanted to do with my life, all the places I’d wanted to see and experience. I’d never get to.

I wasn’t going to leave this mountain alive.

\---

I woke up one day in Rhysand’s bed, realizing the instant that I did that something was off—different. I opened my eyes slowly. I’d curled up onto my side again, hugging my pillow. I faced the middle of the bed, faced…

Rhysand had never slept here. If he had, he’d woken up long before I had, so the sheets could cool. Though I suspected that most nights he was called to a different bed in a different room. But he lay there now… breathing softly on his stomach. His black head was turned away from me so I could catch the light the fire played off the silky strands. Watch how his honey-colored back rose and fell with every gentle little snore, exposing more cut muscle beneath the skin than I thought backs had. See the swirling tattoos—exactly like mine—spilling down his spine. He had one arm curled under his pillow, the other, it looked like, was falling off the bed. Along with one bare leg.

The sheets had pooled to cover his ass, but one leg peaked out to fall off the bed. And the sheets didn’t cover the thighs and calves and foot of his other leg. I looked down at it, the gentle dusting of air, the strange tightness of his large muscles. He had no body fat on him, I realized. His hugeness was literally just his hugeness—all muscle and bones; the natural design of his athletic frame coupled with hard work and effort.

Looking at him filled me up with that need, softer and more aching then I’d experienced before. With Tamlin, it had been trust that made me finally drop my clothes and walk up to him. Trust and the knowledge that I wanted him to see what I couldn’t say in words—that I loved him. It was also a way for me to prove to myself that I wasn’t totally lost in the experiences I’d had. A way for me to prove to myself that I could love another person with more than just feeling and actions, but with flesh and movement. But it was a different kind of need then I felt for Rhysand. 

He was attractive. I’d fallen for his attractiveness. He was cruel and harsh and taunted me with how little he let me into his private life… but I think…

If Rhysand had stayed that man I’d met on Fire Night—things would be different. Physical need was superficial, even if it did grip my entire body. I needed more than that to breach the line. I needed safety and assurances, I needed a person’s mind. He would not give me that. Would not trust me with his actual self.

I buried it all down. I just watched him breathe. I was glad he was here, I realized. I was glad he was getting a small moment away from this life Under the Mountain. So I just lay there and watched him.

Eventually, he stirred. His gentle little snores stopped into even breathing and then sliding limbs on the sheets. I watched him turn his body, then his face to look at me with sleepy, violet eyes. 

“Hello,” He said softly, still half asleep. His voice was low and gravelly with disuse.

It was probably the sexiest I’d ever seen him. A thousand times better than his sexual-persona. I watched him blink, digesting my thoughts without commenting and ruining the softness that lay between us. “Secret?” I asked, my own voice soft.

He stretched a little, exposing even more cuts of muscle than before, movement rippling just under his skin. “I dreamed about you.” It was all he said.

“I only have nightmares anymore.” I turned my back to him.


	6. Hold Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This the last party--when Tamlin get's all grab-ass.
> 
> \--aahhh, sad/angst/non-con mention warning.

The party was like any other, and probably the last I’d go to, my last trial starting sometime the next day. Fae drank and lounged and danced, laughed and sung their bawdy, ethereal songs. In the corner, a captured human was ripe for screaming and torturing, those she was left untouched at the moment. As if in anticipation.

I lurked by the wall, forgotten the crowd as I waited for Rhysand to beckon me with wine so I could dance or do whatever it is that I did at these parties. Clothed in my usual attire, I wore nothing but tattoos and blue-black gossamer. It was taking longer than usual, for him to summon me. Probably because of the curvaceous fae on his lap, her green fingers running through his hair as their tongues tangled together. He’d tire of it soon, I knew, so I waited.

I just wanted it done. I wanted the wine to carry me through the night and bring me to my fate. I was so lost in waiting for Rhysand to be done with his plaything that I didn’t even notice someone stand next to me until their heat was warming my clammy skin. I went rigid with the feeling of rain and earth—but didn’t dare turn to look at Tamlin. We stood side by side, staring out into the crowd of revelers, still and unnoticed.

His fingers brushed mine and a line of fire went up my arm. I felt the tears, but shoved them back. I wished—wished he wasn’t touching me. It made things impossibly harder.

Yet I lived in the moment, lived in the sensation of his fingers touching mine, however brief. It had been so long. All I wanted was to fall into his chest and be held. For his hand to sooth my hair back. For his words to tell me that it was okay. That everything was okay.

His hand dropped quickly, and as quickly as he’d come, he was walking away. I watched him weaving through the crowd. And it was only as he glanced over his shoulder and indicated with a tilt of his head that I should follow did I understand. I began to breathe again.

Heart being faster than it ever had during my trial, I forced my face into an expression of cool boredom as I pushed off the wall and idly started to stroll through the crowd. I took a different route, a longer one, but headed to the same half-hidden door where he’d gone. I had only moments before Rhysand started to notice my absence, before Amaranthe--wherever she was—started to notice Tamlin’s. But a moment alone with him would be enough.

I wanted him to _hold_ me.

I walked through the door and let it close behind me silently. Darkness waited for me. I saw only a flash of green and gold before the warmth and scent of Tamlin’s body was slamming into me. I thought for a second it was to press his body into mine—but then he was shoving me against a wall and his lips were on my throat.

It… wasn’t what I thought it would be. Feeling his hands drag across my skin, grabbing me and squeezing me—but it would be enough. It had to be. I’d take his need, even if all I wanted was comfort. So I tore at his shirt to feel his skin beneath my hands one last time. And I bit off my moan as his hand grabbed my breast to tease the nipple. He wasn’t being gentle, but I didn’t need him to be. Because what I felt for him wasn’t gentle. It was wild and hard and burning—and so was he.

He tore his lips from my neck, only to bite me. Like he had on Fire Night. I hissed to keep myself from moaning and giving us away, feeling the shock of him rack through my spine. And his hands roamed across my skin as I put my hands on his shoulders, feeling them tremble.

He grabbed my thigh and hooked it around his waist so he could grind deeper into me, crushing me with each thrust into the icy wall. _Why do you want this from me?_ I thought, grinding right back, feeling skin, tearing at it in half lust and half furry. _Why won’t you look at me—why won’t you just hold me—why now, do you waste time trying to fuck me?_ Still, I grabbed his hair and I bit of little sounds as reached for the ties of his pants. And as he growled his desire in my ear, I realized. _Because he knows I’ll die tomorrow._ One last fuck.

Someone coughed.

“Shameful,” Rhysand purred. I turned my head as Tamlin whirled around, to find Rhysand illuminated by the light that broke through the doorway. But he was behind us, farther into the passage than the door we’d taken to walk through. Probably had gone through walls. “Just shameful.” He walked towards us, and Tamlin’s hands tightened around me, one on my breast, the other on my upraised thigh. “Look at what you’ve done to darling Feyre.”

There was nothing to say, really. The air became a cold kiss on my skin again, without Tamlin’s body heat to ward it off.

“Amaranthe would be greatly aggrieved if she knew her little warrior was dallying with the human,” Rhysand went on, crossing his arms. “I wonder how she’ll punish you. Or perhaps she’d stay true to the habit and punish Lucien instead.” Fear and shame gripped me. I pushed at Tamlin’s chest to make him back away, but he only snarled, unaffected by my weak strength. “He still has one eye left to lose, you know.” Rhysand went on, looking at me for the first time tonight. “Maybe she’ll put it in a ring, too.”

I pushed again, and this time Tamling removed his hands and stepped out from my embrace. My bare foot touched the cold stone floor.

“Glad to see you're being so reasonable,” Rhysand said. Tamlin bristled. “Now, be a clever High Lord and tie your pants and fix your clothes before you go back out there.”

Tamlin looked at me. Not at my face, but my body. I felt tears stinging my eyes as I realized he’d never once looked at my face because—no mask. I was wearing no mask. With all the time I’d spent with just Rhysand, with his eye contact and his licking and his total lack of care… I’d forgotten. Instead, Tamlin’s eyes roamed my body, soaking in the details as he straightened his shirt and hair and pants. The paint on his hands, his clothes—paint that would mark him for touching me—vanished at the snap of Rhysand’s fingers.

“Enjoy the party,” Rhysand crooned.

Tamlin finally—finally looked up at me. He saw the tears in my eyes. “I love you.” Without another look at me or Rhysand, he left.

I was temporarily blinded by the light that poured into the room when he opened the door and slipped out. He did not look back—and the darkness returned to the hall. And as darkness returned, so did Rhysand’s cruel humor. “If you were that desperate for a release, you should have just asked me.”

“I don’t want release.” I murmured, whipping away a tear that had threated to fall. “I want love. I want to not be lonely, or sad. I want love.” I reached down to cover my breasts with the flimsy folds of my gown.

With a few easy steps, he crossed the distance between us and pinned my arms to the wall by my head. His grip was fierce and I bit my lip to hide the pain of my bones being crushed by his strength. “And did you get that—the love?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“You’re a fool, Feyre. Do you have any idea what could have happened had Amaranthe found you two in here? Tamlin might refuse to be her lover, but she keeps him at her side out of hope that she’ll one day have him—dominate him, as she loves to do.” I looked at him, concerned for the conviction in his voice as he described Amaranthe’s bed. “You’re both fools,” he murmured, his breathing uneven. “How did you not think that someone would notice you were gone? You should thank the Cauldon Lucien’s brothers weren’t watching you at the moment.”

“What do you care?” I asked, wailing a little as his hands against tightened. I knew my bones with snap soon, a little bit more pressure and I’d break my wrists. _I’m going to die, you fucker. I’m going to die—what does it matter if I spend my last night making out in the shadows?_

“What do I care?” He breathed, wrath twisting his features. Wings—real wings, not the shadows of wings—flared from his back, tucking us in deeper into shadow as they curled around us. “What do _I_ care?” He snarled. "Have I not shown you enough, Feyre? Have I not given you enough secrets? You're smarter than--"

But before he could go on, his wings were gone and his head was snapping to the door before his gaze was back on my face. Then his mouth was crashing into mine. I was so startled I didn’t fight him as his tongue found mine easily through the gap of teeth and licked a long stripe in. His hands grabbed me from under my thighs as he pressed me to the wall, keeping me elevated there with his hips and knee as his hands slid up my hips and my ribs to cup both of my breasts. And still, his tongue licked—up the roof of my mouth—

Then the door was flung open wide and Amaranthe’s girlish figure was hopping into the room. Tamlin—Tamlin was beside her, his eyes wide, shoulders tight as Rhysand still danced his tongue with mine. Amaranthe laughed—Tamlin’s face closed off like a crashing stone wall. Devoid of all feeling. All life, all joy. He watched us with dispassionate eyes—again not meeting my open gaze—as Rhysand pulled back. His lips hadn’t done much kissing—I didn’t really have lips or a mouth to kiss anymore—but they did press gently to the fold of skin stretched over my upper teeth, now only scars.

I don’t know what it was. The kiss or the sight of Tamlin. But I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. Not even as High Fae appeared behind Amaranthe’s shoulder to crow and cheer and taunt. Rhysand slipped his hands from my breasts—hands big enough that my breasts didn’t even _fill_ his hands—without any feeling. He traced his path back down to my thighs. Lifting me off the wall, he set me down so I had to slid to my feet by pressing against him.

Then he was stepping away. And giving a low bow to Amaranathe and the loud, cheering crowd behind her as her eyes sparkled with lust at the sight of him.

“I knew it was only a matter of time,” She said, putting a hand on Tamlin’s still arm. “You humans are all the same, aren’t you? Ruled by lust and nothing else. Fickle with your hearts.”

Shame like nothing I’d ever felt clogged its way into my chest. I was suddenly lying on my back in a barn, the snow falling from the broken patches of molding rafters in the ceiling. Every breath was pain. Every lack of breath was pain. My insides felt like they'd been scrambled and impaled. My fingers were bent and my body was broken and there was a weird gurgling every time I let out a wailing cry. Everything was just cold pain. And shame. So much shame.

“Typical human trash with their inconsistent, dull hearts.” Her satisfied voice echoed in my head along with a male voice: _There you go, lovely, something for the fun._

Coins flipping through the air to hit me. My broken ribs had hardly felt it, but a coin had slipped into the bloody wound of my torn open stomach. It landed in my intestines—a dull, searing sort of feeling that had nothing to do with the displaced coin. My guts couldn’t feel.

A hand grabbed me. I was dragged away into the bright light. I could see smudges on the hand where I expected there to be blood. Smudges from the paint on my body. They were all over Rhysand. More than they should be—as if he’d taken the smudges from Tamlin’s body and placed it on his own.

The laughter all blended together. The cruel laughter of satisfied men. The cruel laughter of the fae. Somewhere, as I felt the snow drop on me, I heard a barn door slam shut.

“I’m tired of you.”

Fingers gripped my face and tore my eyes up into violet pools of light. A cool wind breathed itself into my mind, taking with it all the memories, but never the shame. _Breathe, you’re going to pass out_. I took in a horrible, searing breath. “Go back to your cell.” Behind him, Amaranthe and her court were fierce in their glee, their grins wide and mad as they took in my marred paint. The pain covering Rhysand from neck to torso.

He let me go and I walked gladly to my cell.

* * *

 

I was a dull, empty thing when Rhysand’s footsteps sounded. I watched him step out of shadow. Watched him slump against the wall wordlessly and slide to the floor. His shirt was half buttoned. The paint was gone. His hair was wild on his head.

I only stared at him. Watched him rub his temples. “This is a mess.” He said. “The damn bitch is running me ragged.” I watched him drop his hands. Watched him, in one decisive moment, crack the back of his head against the stone behind him. “You hate me, I can feel it in there right now, swirling under all that… shame and horror. Imagine how you’d feel if I made you serve in my bedroom.”

He looked at me. “Secret?”

I had nothing in me, no will to reply.

“Fine. I’ll tell you a truth instead: One wrong move tomorrow, and it’s over. If you fail, Amaranthe rules forever.” He sighed. “Here we are, the fate of our world in the hands of one illiterate human girl.” His laugh was unpleasant and dull as he closed his eyes. “Yet I'm still hopeful. Maybe we can all get out of this. Go home. Heal.”

In me with nothing but a coin and unfeeling guts. The bubbling shame of men telling me that the worst pain and humiliation of my life was  _desired_. That I'd made them do what they did to me.

“I’ve told you too much.” Rhysand said, rising to his feet. “Perhaps I should have drugged you first—like all the other times.” Had he told me secrets then? When I couldn’t remember? “If you were clever, you’d find a way to use this against me. And if you have any stomach for cruelty, you’d go to Amaranthe and tell her the truth about her whore. Perhaps she’d give you Tamlin for it.” He slid his hands into his pockets, but even as he slid into the shadows, there was something to the curve of his shoulders that made me speak.

My voice was a dull, hollowed out thing. “Rhy-Rhy?”

He paused, becoming fully corporeal. I looked up at his violet eyes. “Can—can you do something for me?”

“What?” He asked, frowning.

 _Hold me_.

A frown deepened on his face, before something flickered down through the bond. A feeling that was cataclysmic. Like an ending, perhaps. Some kind of finality I didn’t understand.

But he walked over to me and he didn’t say a word as he grabbed me by my elbows to help me stand. And there, in the dungeon, wrapped in noting but shadows and horror, he held me. My head only came up to his pecks, and his body was so big—I’d never noticed truly how big—he nearly swallowed me as his arms came up. One hand grabbed the back of my head, cradling it, while the other just lay on the exposed skin of my back, on my shoulder blade. A soft, gentle holding. A comfort.

I squeezed my eyes shut and let the shudder rack through my body as something ugly in me opened up to gobble any kindness it could receive. It was pathetic, but I needed it. Needed it more than air. So I wrapped my arms around his torso and held on, breathing as he breathed.

“I don’t—I didn’t get a good enough look. I was focused on a lot of other minds and you were nothing but feeling but—what happened to you?” He asked, squeezing my head again. “Was that night—with the snow and the coin? Was that real?”

“The night my face broke.” I said, shutting out the memories solidly as I focused on his warmth and body around mine.

Wings flapped out, warning me only by the way the air trembled at his pressurized power, before he was wrapping them around me, too. So we were huddled together in comforting darkness. “I didn’t mean to—the paint was ruined. They would have known.”

“I know.” I remembered his head jerking to the door before he’d touched me. I closed my eyes, listening to his heart. It was slow, but thunderous. “You kissed my mouth.”

A questioning breeze flowed through my mind. A silent request for another secret.

“No one has ever kissed me before.” I'd been a shy kid and had never dated before... before the night in the barn. And after, men had terrified me. Not that any would have looked at me twice, anyway. Tamlin had been my leap of faith. Proof to myself that I'd healed from what those men had done to me.

Rhysand sighed. I wondered what he thought of me. He was old—so old. He’d lived more lives than I could dream of. Experienced more, seen more, known more. I wondered what he thought of me, cold and lonely and devoid—clinging to him when he was the kind of man who used knowledge to play games that could kill people.  I was nothing more than a pathetic, illiterate human he was dependent on for his freedom. I couldn’t help but laugh at that, and how knowing it didn’t make me loosen my arms or step away even a little bit.

His lips brushed across the top of my head. I was surprised when a low, throaty hum left him. A gentle, simple tune filled the space he’d created in his wings. Slowly, step by step, he moved me. He didn’t let go—I didn’t either—but he led me around the room one step at a time, humming his tune.

And we danced together like that for a very long time.


	7. The Finale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final Trial. Death time, too.

For my final task, I was given my old tunic and pants. They were stained and reeking and torn, but I kept my face held high as I was escorted to the throne room by my red skinned prisoners.

The doors had been flung open and there was nothing but silence inside. No jeers, no shouts, no insults. There wasn’t even the flash of gold as onlookers placed their bets. Just still faerie faces. Not a smirk in sight. The masked faces were especially intent. The throne room, for the first time since I’d seen it, felt heavy. Oppressed.

The world rested on my shoulders, Rhys had said. I felt that, here. Felt it as I saw some of the fae but their fingers to their lips, extending the hand to me. A gesture for the fallen, for the honored dead. There was nothing malicious in the air or in their gestures.

I looked into their eyes and recognized their acknowledgment of my impending death.

I strode forward and a path cleared for me. The queen smiled her delighted, childish smile as I stopped in front of her throne. Tamlin was in the usual place beside her, but I didn’t look at him. Not after last not—not right now.

“Two trails lay behind you,” She said, grinning. Her red hair shone in the gleaming darkness, threatening to swallow her crown. “And only one more awaits. I wonder if it will be worse to fail now—while you're so close.” She gave a girlish giggle, and seemed to wait for the usual bubble of replying laughs.

Only a few come out behind me—and they sounded more like hisses then laughs. The crowd was silent, otherwise. Heavy.

Perhaps, like Rhysand, their oaths of allegiance were nothing more than desperate attempts to save their peoples lives. Maybe they, like Tamlin, were desperate to be released. Putting their hands in the skills of an ugly human to set them free. And now that the end was here…

We were all facing the end together. Death together. If I failed, it was all over.

Amaranthe glared at them over my head, before her gaze turned to me. “Any words to say before you die?”

I thought of every nasty thing I wanted to say to her. I thought of what I wanted to say to Tamlin—I looked at him, then. His features were stiff and still like stone. I looked away, knowing there would be no loving tenderness there. Still, I took in his green eyes, wishing our love could last longer. Wishing everything wasn’t stacked against us.

I turned instead to the crowd. To the tense and waiting fae. They’d grown used to my face, I realized. Exposed to it as they watched me dance and move around, party after party. There was still disgust, but noting flinching. Nothing that would not meet my eyes. That made me feel brave.

“Tonight, these hours, will decide a lot of things. I will try my hardest, I will fight.” I looked around the room. “Failure or success, freedom or not—you have to fight, too. The time for sitting back and letting it happen, waiting for someone else to save you is over. I am your last hope.” I splayed my hands out to them. “Learn to dream again. Learn to look past your fears and lack of power and petty squabbles.  _Dream of a better world_.” I looked, surprised to find the glowing blue eyes of the Summer Court High Lord. And the Dawn Courts cold, handsome High Lord. And the frozen face of the Winter Court High Lord. And the softly menacing faces of the Autumn Court men—Lucien’s brothers—with the one in front looking the least malicious. I looked to from lesser fae to High Fae, from broken faces to stoic ones to annoyed ones.

I turned around. I looked at Amaranthe’s wrathful face. Her voice was still sweet when she said, “You’ll be lucky, girl, if we even have enough left of you to burn.”

I laughed, low and without happiness. “I will not die alone. It’s enough.” I looked at Jurien’s eye, pinned on me, so sane that it made me sick.

She propped her chin on her hand. “You never figured out my riddle, did you?” I didn’t respond as her viper’s smile came out. “Pity. The answer is so lovely.” Amaranthe looked to Tamlin. “No final words?” She quirked up an eyebrow, and Tamlin said nothing. Did nothing. She grinned at me. “Very well, then.” She clapped her hands twice.

A door swung open and three figures—two male and one female—with brown sacks tied over their heads were dragged in by the guards. I felt my bowels turn to water at the sight of their approach. With sharp jabs and blunt shoves, the red-skinned guards force the three fae to their knees at the head of the deathly silent crown at the foot of the dais. They faced me. Their bodies and clothes revealing nothing of who they were.

Amaranthe clapped her hands again and three servants clad in black appeared at the side of each kneeling fae. In their long, pale hands was a dark velvet pillow. And on each pillow lay a single polished wooden dagger. Not a metal blade, but ash wood—for—for—

“Your final task, Feyre,” Amaranthe drawled, gesturing to the kneeing faeries. “Stab each of these unfortunate souls in the heart.”

I felt the world spin. My knees gave out under me and slammed into the harsh stone floor. “They’re innocent, not that it should matter to you, ugly thing,” She went on. “Since it wasn’t a concern the day you killed Tamlin’s poor sentinel. And it wasn’t a concern for dear Jurian when he butchered my sister. But if it’s a problem, we’ll you could always refuse. Of course, your life is forfeit then. But I don’t see how it would be a problem, even will all your acting.”

Refuse and die. Kill three innocents and live. Three innocents, for my own future. For the freedom of the land.

The wood of the razor-sharp daggers had been polished to shine.

“Well?” She asked. She lifted her hand, letting Jurian’s eye get a good look at me, the daggers, the kneeling fae. “I wouldn’t want you to miss this, old friend.” She purred down at him.

I was crying. Huge, silent tears that racked through my body as I held myself, looking at those three daggers. This wasn’t like hunting; this wasn’t survival. This was cold-blooded murder, put on display. I wished, suddenly, that I knew how to pray. That I’d listened to my father as he spoke of the Old Gods…

 _This will tear my soul in two. This will kill me, as surely as I kill you. Though you kneel there, trembling like fawns… realize that I, your hunter, will also never see the dawn._ I closed my eyes tightly.  _Your sacrifices are true, your hearts forever pure. When you meet that waiting Cauldron, you will be embraced, like in softest fur. I will torment, wither and scream. Know this, your suffering is not in vain. I—the knife—will forever be stained._

I opened my eyes and stood up.

 _Did you know, I killed my mother?_  I knew now, who I was talking to. No old, distant Gods and Goddesses, but the High Lord who’d been kind to me when he had no reason to be. Who listened now, even though he was nowhere in sight.  _I slit her throat. She was dying from a disease that had taken everything from her. Her muscles, her strength, her sight, her ability to control her bowels. She stayed in bed, moaning when she wasn’t screaming_.

I stepped forward.  _I came into her room one night after the screaming had stopped and I looked down at her… she knew it was me. I didn’t know how. But she knew. She called to me ‘Feyre—little Feyre’_. I could almost hear her voice now, soft, harsh from all the wailing.  _‘Come here’_   _she’d said. I’d stolen a knife from the kitchen. And she grabbed my hand in her skeletal ones for a second as I held the knife in my other hand… and she made me promise to take care of my sisters, my family. To make sure my father didn’t ruin us with his violent fists and his temper and his lack of business sense. I couldn’t stop that… but I still protected them. With every fiber of my being. Forever—_

I saw them then, saw my sister's faces as I took halting steps towards the left-most kneeling figure. A boy, from his frame. I saw Nesta’s cold, imperious beauty. Elain’s soft, joyous warmth. The way they danced and laughed together, making flower crowns that morning before Tamlin came…  _As if the blood my mother splashed onto my hands was like your tattoo…a bond that can never be broken for as long as I love._

 _You will survive this_. His cool wind was filled this time with emotion: with sorrow and fury.

 _No, Rhysand, I will not. The second they are free I am going to plunge the dagger into my own chest_. I straightened with the conviction as my knees slammed again in front of the velvet pillow and dagger. As he tried to protest, I thought:  _There are worse things than death_.

He was silent in my mind. I was, too. My fingers trembled as the dagger found its way into my hand. Its hilt was cool and smooth metal, the wood of the blade heavier than I expected. There were three daggers, I realized, because she wanted me to reach for one before each death. Again and again. She wanted me to  _mean_  it—not doing this blindly. But to feel every second. 

“Not so fast.” Amaranthe giggled and guards who had been holding the first kneeling figure down onto his knees took off the hood covering his face.

It was a handsome High Fae youth. Considering he looked younger than me, he could be no older than a two hundred or three hundred years. A babe. I’d never seen him before, but his blue eyes flashed in horror as he saw me. “That’s better,” Amaranthe laughed behind me. “Proceed, Feyre. Enjoy it.”

His eyes were the color of the sky I’d never see again. They grew wider and wider as she shook his head. He would never see the sky either. Neither would these people, if I failed in this.

“Please,” He begged, focus going between me and the dagger. “Please no-nonono—”

 _I don’t know you, but I love you_. I realized, looking at his eyes. Feeling his agony.  _I am sorry that you have to go through this. With my entire being_.

“Don’t,” The Fae youth begged as I lifted the dagger. “ _Don’t_!”

I didn’t breath. Someone in the crowd was weeping. I was taking this boy from a loved one.

Kill a faerie, fall in love with a faerie, then be forced to kill a faerie to keep that love.

Darkness rippled near the throne. I could feel the pressure of it at my back.

“ _Don’t_ ,” The Fae moaned. “ _Please!_ ” His voice rose to a shriek.

I knew where to put the dagger for a clean kill. Knew, after so much hunting. Between the ribs. I didn’t hesitate as I lunged, sliding the wood smoothly into skin, between muscle and ribs and up into the heart. He screamed, thrashing against the grip holding him down as blood—hot and thick—poured onto my hands. I yanked the dagger out. The impact stung up my hand, my arm.

The boy’s blue eyes, full of shock and hate, remained on me as he sagged. That person in the crowd let out a keening wail. My dagger hit the floor.

Behind me, Amaranthe purred, “Very good.”

I faced the second figure, feeling the world leave me. Still hooded. A female this time. I dropped again to my knees in front of her. The hood was torn off her face.

She had a simple, beautiful face. Her hair was gold-brown, like my sister's hair. Like mine used to be, before stress had leached out all the color. Tears were already rolling down her round cheeks, her bronze eyes locked with mine as I reached for the second dagger. The cleanness of the metal handle mocked the blood on my hands.

“I won’t… ask for forgiveness.” I whispered. “I can’t have it—I—I’m sorry, though. I have to. This is bigger than me. Bigger than you.” Bigger than my love for Tamlin.

“Cauldron save me,” She began whispering, her voice lovely—like music. I flinched at the sound. “Mother hold me.” The prayer was simple but familiar. Just like the one Tamlin had spoken when the wingless fae died on the table. “Guide me to you. Let me pass through the gates; let me smell that immortal land of milk and honey.” The never-ending tears flowed down my face and neck, dampening the collar of my stained tunic. “Let me fear no evil.” She breathed, staring into my eyes, my soul which was breaking and shattering. “Let me feel no pain.”

A sob broke from my lips.

“Let me enter eternity.” She breathed.

Her bronze eyes were steady, not sorrowful. So much worse than the pleading of the dead faerie beside her.

She held my gaze—held my gaze and nodded.  _Do it_  she seemed to say.  _Do it now_.

I lifted the ash dagger. “Let me enter eternity,” She repeated, chin high. “Fear no evil. Feel no pain.” I wailed as I realized she was saying those words for me.

I grabbed her delicate shoulder and drove the dagger into her heart.

She gasped and blood spilled over my hand, splattering like hair. Her eyes were closed when I looked to her face again, when I pulled the dagger from her chest and she slumped to the floor and didn’t move again.

I stood. There was a lot of stirring, and weeping going through the room. I dropped the dagger, listening to it clatter to the floor—

I screamed. I screamed louder than I’d ever screamed in my life. I let it tear through me, the only expression I could find for the yawning emptiness in my chest. My jaw cracked from the pain of it, sliding out of the fragile joint so it broke again. I only screamed more.

I weeped as I lurched forward, reaching up to snap my jaw back into place with a loud crack. Silence reigned. So silent.

One more. Just one more and I could die.

Stumbling forward, I lost the feeling in my knees and slammed down before taking a single step. Slamming down on my hands and knees, I wailed as I crawled in front of the third person. The hood was lifted up by the time I gripped the dagger. I barely saw the flash of golden skin before I was plunging the knife in.

Jade green eyes looked at me, studded with gold in a beautiful, masked golden face. Golden hair stream down his back. Golden skin reflected the little light there was in the room. His beautiful, full lips were parted in a gasp of pain.

And that was it. Of course it was. Amaranthe loved her ironies: Kill a faerie, fall in love with a faerie, then be forced to kill a faerie to keep that love. Then kill the faerie you love. 

Tamlin’s full lips parted. Not to snarl at me. Not to hiss. Not to curse me. He smiled and said simply said, “I love you” as the blood leaked down my bloody hands.

Wailing, I dug in deeper, feeling the tip of the ash dagger hit something hard and unyielding where it should have gone clean through him—like it had the others. Tamlin lurched forward at the grunt, his face going pale, as I yanked the dagger out of his chest. I looked down at that blade as I lifted it—tip facing me.

It was crooked, pointing back in on itself.

_“Though you have a heart of stone, Tamlin,” The Attor had said, “you certainly keep a host of fear inside.”_

_“For someone with a heart of stone, yours is certainly soft these days.” Lucien said._

_“She took their magic from where it originates in the body,” Allis had said. “And that part of their body turned to stone.”_

_Even Tamlin... had said he loved me with his entire stone heart._

I was beyond trembling. Instead, a wild, crazed laughter escaped my throat. I hadn’t known—I hadn’t known till I saw that tip…

I looked me, feeling as if I wasn’t even moving my own body. On the dais, the chair Tamlin had been sitting in before was gone. Rhysand stood next to it, grinning from ear to ear in triumph. And Amaranthe climbed to her feet next to him.

A clatter ran across the room. I jumped, realizing it was the dagger.

 _Kill her now,_  I thought, tired. But Tamlin didn’t move as he held his wound, blood flowing out between his fingers. Too slowly—he was healing too slowly. Either because of the ash wood or because his magic was still gone…  _Kill her now_ , I howled in my mind. Tamlin’s mask still hadn’t fallen. His face was still expressionless.

“She won,” someone in the crowd yelled. “Free them!” another yelled.

Amaranthe’s face had none of her childish delight in it. She looked twisted—wrong, as she stood there, features contorting into something even more serpentine. “I’ll free them whenever I see fit. Feyre didn’t specify  _when_  I had to free them—just that I had to. At some point. Perhaps when you’re dead,” She finished, looking at the entire crowd, at the fae moving from foot to foot. “You assumed that instantaneous release was for the trails, too? Foolish human.” She spat at me.

Her fingers turned to claws as she came down the dais. Jurian’s eye on her hand was swinging, wild. Pupil dilatating and shrinking. “And you,” She hissed at me. “ _You_.” Her teeth gleamed—sharp and white. “ _I’m going to kill you.”_

Someone yelled at that. Then someone else. More screaming—more shouts of dissent.

Then lightning struck me and I crashed to the floor.

“ _I’m going to make you pay for your insolence_ ,” Amarantha snarled, hardly heard over the roaring in my ears as pain erupted through me. My very bones were shattering as my body rose off the ground then slammed back down. I was crushed beneath or horrible weight that flattened my bones. Splintered me.

“Admit you don’t really love him and I’ll spare you,” Amaranthe breathed. I could hardly see her through the strange, bloody darkness filling my eyes as blood clots ripped open. “Admit you a cowardly, lying, inconstant bit of human  _garbage_!”

I couldn’t say a thing even if I wanted too as she tore open my chest with power and my ribs were ripped open. I looked down, seeing the gory sight of my own insides again. Too familiar of a sight these days.

“ _Feyre!_ ” Someone roared. I could only recognize his voice as my ears shattered because it was yelled from inside my mind too, a cold, furious, agonized wind.

Amaranthe came closer. She was speaking. I couldn’t hear a thing. I blacked out and she brought me back, ensuring I felt everything, ensuring I screamed as my splayed out ribs cracked, as my legs twisted in the wrong way. Still, I watched Amaranthe’s face contort and yell as she spoke. But there was only absolute silence in my ears, silence and the words—

 _No no no, Feyre, hold on—hold on_ —

I was suddenly crouching beside Tamlin. reaching out with large, square plamed hand for the discarded ash dagger. Not my hand. Not my body. 

I looked to Amaranthe, feeling like Jurian’s rolling eye as I took in her screaming, twisted face, recognizing that I wasn't looking out through  _my_  eyes anymore. I was watching her lift up her foot to slam into the strange, twisted thing on the floor. Watching her break off little bits and pieces of bone into the growing pool of blood. Watching as meat and skin became one pulpy thing.

And then I was launching myself at Amaranthe, like a swift shallow, ash dagger aimed for her throat—

She lifted a hand—not even bothering to look—and I blasted away to the wall by a bright white light.

That light took my vision along with my hearing. I swam in pain. Aware of Rhysand roaring in my head at first in fury—then in pain. He seemed to be fighting still. Getting up and being blasted down and getting up again.

The bond between us had gone taunt, hooked deep in my ribs. I flashed between my body and his, seeing myself through his eyes; bleeding, broken, hardly even a body anymore as I screamed. I hadn’t even known I was still screaming.

I was in his head as I heard Amaranthe’s hateful voice said, “Stop?  _Stop?_ Don’t pretend you care about Rhysand, human.” She snarled, curling her finger. The thing on the floor kept pleading for Amaranthe to 'stop hurting him', a strange, roaring chant that melded into itself.

I was back in my body as I felt an invisible, horrible power curve my spine up off the stone floor and the hot pools of blood. It cracked. I felt it crack. Felt everything below my mid-back just… cease to exist in the darkness and lack of sound. In my head, Rhysand bellowed my name again.

I was in his head as Amaranthe screamed, “ _Say that you don’t love him!_ ”

I watched with eyes that weren’t my own as I tried—with hands that weren’t my own—to attack again. I was blasted back, feeling the double echo of pain as my—his—bones broke and tried to reheal themselves in seconds. As he waited to heal, blasted into a wall that cracked under his body, he—I—watched Tamlin crawl towards Amaranthe. Watched as he clutched her dress, begging over my screaming to stop. “Stop. I’m sorry—I’m sorry for what I said about Clythia all those years ago. I’m sorry. Please.”

Amaranthe ignored him. Though Rhysand looked away, the image of Tamlin burned itself into my mind and I was transported back into my painful body of no sound or sight. His eyes so green—like the meadows in his estate. I thought of the enchanted forest he’d taken me too. The evening we laid in the grass. The day we’d swam in pure starlight—the happiest of all my memories. And I was okay, suddenly, with it all. For a brief moment I’d known happiness.

_For though each of my strikes lands a powerful blow,_

_When I kill, I do it slow.._

That’s what these three months had been—a slow, horrible death. What I felt for Tamlin was the cause of it all. Not pain, absence, or happiness could cure it.

 _But scorned, I become a difficult beast to defeat_.

She could torture me all she liked but it would never destroy what I felt for him. Nothing could—nothing outside of ourselves, at least. And there was no way it could make Tamlin want her as she wanted him, as I’d had him. Nothing could stop the sting of his rejection in her heart.

The world become light again, as Rhysand was again forced backwards.

 _But I bless all those who are brave enough to dare_.

Rhysand surged to move again, his broken bones no longer trying to heal themselves.

“Love.” Rhysand stopped at the soft sound of my broken voice. Even Amaranthe did.

I was back again in my body of darkness and nothing. “That’s the answer… to the riddle…” I had to scream it, to feel the pain of the words in my throat and know that I was actually speaking. “It’s… love…” There was the strangest feeling then. A crack. And then… 

\---

I was in darkness, floating. Inky, but soft and caressing. I was swimming, kicking for the surface, where love and  _life_  waited for me. Up and up, frantic for air. The golden light flew and the darkness became like sparkling wine, easier to swim through, bubbles frizzing around me—

I gasped, air flooding my throat in a sweet relief, even if it was tanged in coppery blood.

I was lying on the cold floor, soaked through with something wet. No pain—no broken bones. I blinked at the sharp light. A chandelier—a familiar chandelier—swung above me. I’d never noticed how intricate those crystals were cut, how they reflected light in little rainbows. Or how loud everyone was, even as they just shuffled and stirred.

I sighed, missing something… something important.

I braced my elbows on the floor, looking down at my body. In a tattered, disgusting shirt and pants. Looking down… my waist was so tiny. So very tiny compared to the dramatic, wide flare of my hips. The shocking thickness of my powerful thighs, the way the outside of those thigh curved into powerful calves and delicate little ankles. My feet… I knew my feet. They were scared, of course, three toes missing from the left, the big toe missing from the right. Skin strange and puckered around the missing toes from the frost-bite scars. But the feet I saw had all the toes. The foot was narrow, pretty, small, the toes long and with pink little nails that looked strange against the pure, milky white skin. I wiggled them, confused. And they moved. All ten of them.

I raised up one hand, looking past the thick blood coating it in layers. My wrist was so delicate. Strangely delicate—breakable looking. My palm was soft and small, the cat pupil eye looking back at me, seeming to watch with it’s strange cunning. My fingers were long, elegant, smooth. The nails perfectly rounded. My calluses were gone.

I looked up, sensing—smelling—the rain and spring meadow and richer, earthlier things I’d never noticed before. Tamlin was holding his breath, holding so perfectly still as I looked down at myself. I could hear his heart beating, hear the quiet weeping of the hall. A few were beginning to praise the glory and power of the High Lords.

“It… was the only way to save you.” Tamlin’s voice was so rich, so smooth.

I still couldn’t—didn’t dare—look at him. Instead, I looked for Amaranthe. Saw her on her dias, dead eyes staring at nothing. Her mouth gaping open around the sword protruding from it, pinning her to her cracked stone throne. Her throat was gone, blood drenching her front, the exact same shade as her hair.

I didn’t remember her dying. I didn’t remember how the pain had left my broken body. Or how my broken body had healed. Maybe it was all a dream. A horrible dream...

But I was laying in a pool of blood.

 _So I did kill them, I’m a murderer_. Pain locked through me, and my entire body shuddered as I looked away from Amaranthe’s body to the two slumped over figures, laying in their own puddles of blood. “Bring them back.” I whispered. My voice didn’t sound like my own. Gone were the awkward slurs of my tongue as it tried to wrap around a disfigured mouth. My voice was a little rough, strong, soft.

“What?”

“Bring  _them_  back.” I wailed, pointing a bloody hand towards the figures. “Fuck me—I don’t deserve—I don’t—not me. Bring  _them_  back.” I wailed. “Do it again, do it again—take what you gave me—”

“Hey, hey.” Strong, warm bloodied hands grabbed either side of my face. I froze at the feeling of them, callused and strong, cupping… a face. I could feel it, under his hands. Smooth skin. Normal features. Frozen in shock, I let him turn my head to look at him.

I saw that familiar strong chin, that full mouth—then—

He looked just like I thought he would, under the mask. He was young, younger than most High Fae, around my age—at least in looks. His nose was lean, his cheekbones even and strong, his green eyes shining.

 He was smiling, his entire face filled with a quiet joy that I’d come to miss and love so dearly. He brushed my hair back from the sides of my face, his fingers getting tangled in the matted blood. And he was looking at me. Directly into my eyes, he was looking at me. “We can’t—we can’t bring them back. The power… doesn’t work like that.”

I sobbed. Still, I reached for his face. With a blood soaked hand, I touched my fingers to trace the contours of his cheekbones and his lovely, straight nose. Where I touched, blood followed.

“Then you should have let me rot.” I whispered, dropping my bloody hand.

\---

Apparently, they’d done more than just heal me. They’d turned me into a High Fae.

I touched my pointed ears again, bending down the soft cartilage as I sat on the edge of a bed, hair damp from the bath I’d just taken. I’d first, I’d scrubbed to see the milky white skin. Then I’d scrubbed to see if the skin could turn pink. It couldn’t. It stayed the same perfect, unmarred white the entire time.

I looked to Tamlin, who was just staring at me. We’d scarcely had a moment alone together the hours that followed Amaranthe’s death and me waking up. He’d held me as I cried in the pool of blood, telling me that he forgave me for what I did—that it was okay. That it was all going to be okay. Then he’d gone off to talk to the other High Lords about what to do with the aftermath of the last fifty years hanging around them.

But now… in this quiet room… I looked around, seeing the objects. His bandolier set hanging off a chair. Piles of books and papers on a desk. A lute in the corner. Clothes strewn about. A small painting done on the stone of a sunset and meadow. This room was lived in. Cared for. Even though it had only been three months and some days. It was so different from Rhysand’s room.

I bent my ear down again. My arm ached with a phantom memory, as if I’d just finished plunging the knife in.

I closed my eyes. There were lots of things missing from my memories. Black spots I hadn’t realized existed. Lucien had told me what had happened, though, as the High Lords tried to stop the chaos.

 I'd broken the spell as soon as I'd given the answer to the riddle. Tamlin had killed Amarenthe as his powers came flooding back, and once he’d killed her, everyone else’s power was returned. The Attor and the nastier fae who’d supported Amarathe of their own free will had disappeared instantly. Lucien’s brother’s had disappeared too, though apparently they’d gone to the Autumn Court where there father ruled because of his early support to Amaranthe’s cause. Some fae had fled, other had burst into celebration, others had mourned, or stood and paced, or just stared off into oblivion.

And the High Lords, one by one, had decided to give me an essence of themselves, a little piece of their power. And shaped me back to life with a new, powerful body. 

Rhysand had disappeared while I was fighting to get out of the darkness—after the Fae had revived me, before I’d woken up.

Once woken, I’d watched as fea after fae came to Tamlin and I. They weeped and laughed with joy as they knelt before us, each and every one of them getting blood on them as they kissed Tamlin and I—thanking us for what we did. Thanking  _me_.

I was taken out of Tamlin’s arms as he joined the frenzied meetings in the throne room. I’d watched from a distance, curled up around my new knees as the High Lords and Tamlin sorted through the next steps. Lucien had stopped by for a bit, he’d held me for a second, before his own duties took him away.

Every breath was too loud. Every smell too strong. Light was too bright. Keeping still and letting it wash over me had been easier than moving, then adjusting to limbs that moved too quickly, too elegantly. To a body that wasn’t mine. I couldn’t even touch my hair without feeling the strangeness of it. Like velvet. That’s what my hair had become. A streaming, shocking thing of velvet. It was long, and thick, and absolutely straight without a single hair of out of place. The old bolt-grey color had turned into shining silver, as if there was a light in my hair that wanted to glow. I kept seeing it out of the corner of my eye and jumped, thinking something was there.

Tamlin had noticed. He’d escorted me through the labyrinth of tunnels to a bedroom he’d been using these past few months. He’d put me in the bath and walked out to continue the meetings, letting me sit and wash the blood off. Then try to scrape my skin off.

I was dressed and sitting on the bed when he came back, tired and exhausted. Then he’d just stood there, staring at me from across the room.

“Feyre,” He said now. I opened my eyes, lost for a second by the lack of mask before his features swam into place. His green eyes were filled with awe.

This—this is what I’d murdered those faeries for. For the possibilities, for the future. For freedom. For what I could be and what we could be. I’d proven it to myself. I could save him, do for him what he’d done for me. And I wouldn’t die in decades while he lived on, immortal. It was perfect. It had all ended so perfectly.

Only now… an emptyness sat in my chest.

“What is it?” I asked, my voice soft and husky and hollow.

He gave me a half smile. Had he been human, he might have been in his early twenties, like me. But he wasn’t human. And neither was I anymore.

I’m not sure if it was a happy thought or not. To realize that eternity yawned on forever.

“Feyre,” He moved forward, lowering the legs I’d been clutching to my chest to stand between my knees. He caressed my new cheek with a soft, serious look. “How can I ever repay you for what you did?”

“There is nothing to repay. This was  _my_  repayment.” I murmured. At his confused look, I tried to explain. “What you did—for my sister—”

“That was  _nothing_  compared to this.”

I frowned. “It was everything.” But he was already shaking his head, his hands coming up to cup my new face fully.

I moved to touch his forearms with my fingertips. He caught the movement, releasing my face to grab my left arm and study the swirling, delicate eddies. It hadn’t left. All my scars, calluses, wounds, and broken bones had left. Limb had literally regrown. But the tattoo remained. The bond. “Feyre—” He murmured, his brows scrunching together as his green eye grew dark.

“He’d said… for the rest of  _our_  lives.” I chuckled at the wordplay. I smiled at his face, feeling the oddness of actually  _smiling_  again. “I guess he meant it. My life was over—but it’s still here. Because he’s not dead.” I looked at the tattoos with Tamlin.

A low, rumbling snarl broke from his chest. “We’ll break it.”

I hummed, watching him trace the markings on my flesh before travelling up to rest on my shoulder. He opened his mouth, then closed it. He watched me again, looking just like he had at the door. Still, gut punched, a little awed. “You’re so beautiful.”

“I…” I looked away, unbelievably uncomfortable. I’d wanted him to say that for so long…

I’d looked in the mirror: how could I not? I’d seen myself. I was pretty. Beautiful, even. My face was like I remembered it from my childhood—only grown up and heighted times a thousand. My face was delicate, would have been heart shaped it if wasn’t long. My cheekbones were huge and round, the curve of my cheeks leading to my soft jaw, my tiny chin made even more tiny by my thick lipped mouth. My upper lip was bigger than the bottom. My nose was long, small. It was a face that mature, sexy, still girlish. But my eyes… they were the only thing dark about me, now that my skin had turned to milk and my hair to streaming silver. They were the same dark grey things; orbs that showed every furious thought, every deceptive, cruel bitterness. They’d been like an accusation, sitting there in a face I remembered from childhood, when life was softer.

My hair—surprising me again—slid in a heavy wave that fanned out, thick, silky strands parting to create a silver curtain between me and him as I ducked my head down. I could literally see the hair glowing against his skin as he lifted it up to cup my face and bring it back to him. “So beautiful. The most beautiful fae I’ve ever seen.”

“Liar.” I muttered.

“It’s true.” He said earnestly. “I’ve seen many beautiful women in my life but you…” His gaze travelled around my face. Down my body. I’d put on one of his shirts, after leaving the bath. It swam on me, pooling in my lap, exposing my thick thighs. The hunger in his eyes as he lifted them back to mine was shocking. “Later—we can talk about it all later. Right now…”

He leaned down and kissed me.

On my lips.

I shuddered, back arching as his hand slid through my hair to cup the back of my neck. His lips were soft, tentative. There was none of those wild, harsh kisses he’d given my body in the throne room or back at his estate. His lips were so gentle as they brushed mine. And as I gripped the front of his bloodied shirt to feel his muscles against my knuckles, his tongue slipped inside.

At the first taste, a low growl escaped him. “You taste like blackberries and cream.” He snarled against my lips, before continuing. The sound sending a wild-fire blazing through me, pooling down into my core. I let it burn there, let it take over in a crazed haze to consume the empty feeling residing in my chest. I gave myself to that fire, to him, as his hands placed themselves on the sides of my thighs and skimmed up my body.

I pulled back, though I was still bowed backwards, my chest arching. I looked up into his face. His eyes were bright—hungry—but his hands stopped their exploring on my hips. With a predator’s stillness, he waited and watched as I reached forward to trace the contours of his face. In every place I touched, I kissed too. Because I’d never kissed him before.

His breathing was raged as I continued my slow exploration. And then he stopped breathing all together as I untied his shirt. He helped me lift it over his head, his gaze wild as he looked me over. “It hurts to look at you,” He whispered. “You’re so beautiful, it hurts. Like I'm dying. Like I can’t remember how to breathe.”

I shook my head, starlight streaming around me in a heavy curtain. “Shh—” I continued my exploration of his chest. I traced his neck, kissing it as my fingers trailed across his torso, the soft muscles of him. I licked his biceps after my fingers were done, felt the tautness of his stomach. He had no hair on his body, I knew. None on his arms, legs, chest, or balls. Only his long, streaming golden hair and eyebrows and lashes existed. I’d thought it normal—but I remembered how hairy Rhysand had been.

I went back up to his face. When my fingers traced his mouth, he bit down on the middle one, sucking it cleanly through his lips. I looked up at his gaze, to see that his patience was running thin.

Again, I hesitated. I wanted to be with him, wanted desperately to loose myself in heat and friction and bodies. But what I’d done… what had been done to me. This was a new body, yes… but my mind…

 _Stop thinking about it_. I closed my eyes and then tilted further backwards. Putting my hands on the bed, I put my heels to the bed and lifted my hips, soundly and easily moving backwards so I was in the middle. His eyes were on me, displayed fully to him. I knew I was as hairless as he was.

When my hips settled fully into bed, I leaned back on my elbows. He didn’t move an inch—didn’t breathe—as I slowly grabbed the bottom of the tunic and lifted it off my shoulders, my head. My hair caught in the fabric for a second and then came all tumbling down in fine, silvery sheets that reflected on my hands, the walls, the bed.

Tamlin’s snarl filled the room as he looked over my new body.

I’d studied my body thoroughly in the tub. It was a mass of contradictions; my neck was thin, my shoulders broad enough. My arms were elegant and long looking for their thinness, almost willowy. My torso was narrow, tapering down dramatically to my shockingly small waist. On them sat my breasts, round, perky, still small, with tight little nipples that were so sensitive I’d avoided brushing against them in the bath after the first time. From the waist up, I was elegant, almost girlish. From the bottom, my flared hips, thigh thighs, and strong calves made me curvaceous. Womanly. The inside of my thighs no longer touched and the only part of my skin with any color to it at all was the rosy pink of my nipples and vagina. I knew though, as my legs spread open to reveal myself, that the inside was  _not_  pink but a riot of red. It looked obscene, really, against my white thighs. Yet all of my joints were so delicate, it made me look a little breakable.

Tamlins’ fingers cracked the bedpost he was holding. He hissed out, “Yes, or no?”

I grinned at him, waving a knee in the air as I laid back on my elbows. “Hmmm… yes or no?” I asked in my husky voice, tilting my head to feel my hair fall down my shoulder. I liked the way he looked at me. Liked the way it made me feel. I’d never seen anyone look at me with such  _desire_. Not even him. My heart was thumping, loud and fast in my chest. “What will you do to me, Tamlin?”

His eyes snapped up. “Let me show you.”

I laughed. “Ye—” I didn’t even get the word out before he was on top of me. His pants had come off—doing one of those High Fae disappearing acts—and there was no separation of movement from him getting on the bed to lean over me and being suddenly inside of me.

I nearly screamed from the feeling, everything but my hips lifting off the bed as I felt the fullness of him. He snarled against my throat, one hand roaming across my thigh as he panted. He said my name over and over again: into the shell of my ear, the tips of my fingers, my neck, my collarbone, onto the peak of my nipple. A nipple he took with my lips that had me squeezing around him.

And he kissed me again. And we moved together like savage, wild, unhinged lovers who only had each other to drive away the darkness. And I burned with him.

\---

I was pulled from sleep by something tugging at my middle, like a string was tied around my sternum.

I left Tamlin in bed, his body heavy with exhaustion after the hours and  _hours_  we’d spent tangled up in each other, moving with each other. I put on a dress that had been left for me sometime between the fourth and fifth round by a nervous servant. It was light, flowy, swinging around my upper thighs in a gentle way.

I padded down the halls with my new bare feet, stumbling and teetering every now and then as I put too much emphasis on a single movement of my walk. It was odd, adjusting to the new body’s balance and rhythm. Like learning a new kind of dance or stretch that seemed unnatural.

I carefully, slowly took the narrow steps upward. Up and up, till my calves  _should_  have been burning and I could see the shock of sunlight pouring into the stairwell. I raced up the last steps, finding myself on a small balcony on the side of the mountain. I closed my eyes to ignore the sting the sun brought to them, tilting my head and arms out to absorb the warmth and tingle of it.

I couldn’t—wouldn’t—hold my joyous laughter.

Rhysand joined me with his own chuckle. “Feels good, doesn’t it?” I opened my eyes to see him standing on the railing, his back to me, his own face tilted up to the sky. The wind picked up his silky black hair the same time it picked up mine, sending more light around me to sting and stab at my eyes.

Letting the tears fall, I looked at him fully. He was still dressed in black. His membranous wings were out—tucked in neatly behind his broad form. “You know,” I said, my voice turning even huskier as the anger took me over. “You didn’t put a flaming skull on me like you  _said_  you would.” A hiss escaped from my throat, expressing my displeasure as I remembered Tamlin’s furious horror as he saw the second bond on my ass. It wasn’t what I thought it would be. Instead, it said:  _Rhysand_  in perfect, elegant script. Like he’d written on my skin itself.

He laughed. “I never said it  _would_  be."

I thought about staying angry at him. But then I remembered the way he’d screamed in my head, the way he’d come at Amaranthe again and again when no one else would. “Are you excited then?” I asked, shyly putting my hands behind my back to rest against the swell of my ass. “To be free?” He said nothing. “You should go home—you have family, don’t you? Friends? I bet they’ve missed you a lot, you damn martyr.”

“I just wanted to say goodbye first.” Tendrils of darkness wavered of his shoulders. “Before your beloved whisks you away forever.”

“Not forever.” I said, smiling at the clouds as the wind again took my hair. “Don’t I get to see you every month?” And it sounded nice. I was curious to see what the Night Court would be like.

His wings rustled, then settled. “How could I forget?” He said, putting his elbows on the railing.

I didn’t get any closer. And he didn’t turn around. I thought of his bleeding nose. His broken arm. The pain in his violet eyes as he rushed again and again no matter what it cost.  _Why?_

He shrugged. “Because when legends get written, I don’t want to be remembered as the villain.”

“You want to be remembered as a hero.” I murmured, thinking on that. “Odd, to think of an immortal caring what grandchildren and great-grandchildren will think when your old bones finally turn to dust.” I’d thought it was only a human trait.

“Because,” He said, as if I’d never spoken. He peaked over his shoulder but didn’t actually turn to look at me. “I didn’t want you to fight alone. Or die alone.”

I smiled at him, feeling a wonderful, bright happiness filling my chest at those words. “Thank you.”

His head bobbed. “I doubt you’ll be saying that when I take you to the Night Court.”

“Maybe. I think I’m looking forward to the adventure of it, though.” I said, turning to look at the mountains that went on and on, gleaming and shadowed under the vast sky. “Are you flying home?” I asked.

His laugh was soft. “Unfortunately, it would take longer than I can afford. Another day, maybe, I’ll take to the skies again.” He said it wistfully, longingly, lovingly. I glanced at the wings tucked into his powerful body.

“You really love them—you said they were hidden but…”

“Everything I love had a tendency to be taken away from me. I tell no one—in case it slips, how… vital it is to my being. It’s why I found your confession, about music, so brave.” I was about to speak when he spoke over me. “How does it feel to be a High Fae?” He asked, quiet and curious.

I closed my mouth, looking towards the mountains again. “I’m immortal now… and I’ve been mortal. This body…” I looked down at myself. My hips, my feet with all their toes. It was a mockery of what I’d done, who I was inside. “This body is different, but this—” I put my hand to my chest, watching it lift and lower as a breathed. “Is still human. Still tainted by everything that doesn’t seem very far away to me. Maybe it’ll always be that way. Maybe I’ll always be haunted by the past, even as I get used to thinking of time in millennia…” My throat welled. “It would be easier, if I changed. If my heart had altered too. Easier to live with what I’d done. Maybe then I wouldn’t care so much; maybe I could convince myself their deaths weren’t in vain. But I… don’t really want it to be taken away like that. Diminished.”

Rhysand was quiet for a very long time. “Be glad for your human heart, Feyre darling. Pity those who don’t feel anything at all.”

I sighed. “What do you feel, Rhysand?”

“Many things.” He straightened over the railing. “Well, I suppose this is goodbye-for now.” He rolled his neck. I watched as his wings vanished from his back like they’d never been there. He turned around, then caught the reflection of my hair on the mountain as the wind took it away.

His eyes locked on mine, wide and wild. His nostrils flared. Shock—pure shock flashed across his features at whatever he saw on my face. As he physically took a step back. Actually stumbled and fell into the railing behind him.

“Rhy-Rhy?” Concerned, I took a few quick steps for him, hands outstretched. “What’s wrong?” I’d seen reactions similar to it when I was mortal and my face was still my face. But he hadn’t reacted that way. Why did he seem to fear my new face?

Before I could reach him, he disappeared—just vanished. Not into shadow, but crisp air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to stop writing fics that are basically re-imagined cannon. But it's like my CRACK dude


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